MISS 

AMERIKANKA 


OLIVE  GILBREATH 


3 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 


'How  lovely  you  are  in  that  white 
frock,  Amerikanka" 


MISS 
AMERIKANKA 

A  Story 

BY 
OLIVE   GILBREATH 


ILLUSTRATED  BY 

SIGISMUND  de  IVANOWSKI 


HARPER  y  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

NEW   YORK   AND    LONDON 


Miss  AMERIKANKA 


Copyright,    1918,   by   Harper  &   Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  March,  1918 

C-9 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 

CHAP.  PAGB 

I.  THE  CHINESE  EXPRESS 3 

II.  A  WAR  SPECIAL 20 

III.  BLOTTING  THE  ESCUTCHEON 30 

IV.  CHRISTMAS  ON  THE  STEPPE 43 

V.  CHILDREN  OF  THE  FOREST 53 

PART  II 

VI.  PETER'S  CAPITAL 71 

VII.  IN  A  RUSSIAN  HOUSEHOLD 84 

VIII.  THE  LEE  OF  THE  WAR 98 

IX.  A  RUSSIAN  LYRIC 118 

X.  RUSSIAN  TREACHERY 133 

XI.  THE  HOUSE  UNDER  THE  LIMES 146 

XII.  A  FACE  AT  THE  BALLET 157 

XIII.  Miss  AMERIKANKA  KNOWS 171 

XIV.  A  MENTAL  BREAD-LINE 179 

XV.  MOTHER  VOLGA       193 

PART  III 

XVI.  BEHIND  M.  NOVINSKY'S  EYES 217 

XVII.  AN  ADVENTURE  IN  PERSONALITY 224 

XVIII.  NEWS   FROM   THE   FRONT 233 

XIX.  "SOMETHING  POIGNANT" 249 

XX.  FROM  TURGENEV'S  WORLD 254 

XXI.  THE  SCORPION'S  STING     .    .    .  • 272 

XXII.  "THE  BARIN  RETURNS"       279 

XXIII.  REALITIES  ....  — -— v";~ 287 

XXIV.  Miss  AMERIKANKA  CHOOSES 292 


2135668 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"How  LOVELY  You  ARE  IN  THAT  WHITE  FROCK, 

AMERIKANKA"          Frontispiece 

"WHY  AM  I  A  ROAMER  IN  THESE  WHITE  WASTES?"  Facing  P.     4 

LIFE   WELLING   UP   FROM    DEPTHS   PASSIONATE, 

BARBARIC "       114 

EVERYTHING  THAT  HE  LOVED  WAS  SINGING  ITS 

SWAN-SONG  THROUGH  His  FINGERS  ....      "      144 


PART  I 


MISS  AMERIKANKA 


THE  CHINESE   EXPRESS 

IF  the  angel  Uriel  were  casting  an  all-seeing 
eye  on  the  Manchurian  plain  to-night  he 
might  observe  a  feeble  fly  crawling  across  its 
great  white  coverlet.  If  he  were  omniscient 
as  well,  he  might  answer  the  riddle  that  re- 
volves in  my  mind — why  this  vast  whiteness 
does  not  rush  in  and  blot  out  the  one  thing 
that  dares  move  and  have  being  in  the  face 
of  its  immensity — and  what  madness  it  is 
that  sets  a  woman  wandering  a  night  like 
this.  Twenty-four  hours  ago  I  sat  content 
behind  the  walls  of  Peking.  Why  to-night 
am  I  a  roamer  in  these  white  wastes?  From 
my  window  in  the  Chinese  express,  steadily 
scurrying  northward,  I  watch  the  moon 
climb  up  out  of  those  lonely  borders  of  China 

3 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

we  are  just  leaving.  Is  she  saying  us  farewell, 
or  does  she,  looking  down  on  a  land  too  wise 
to  be  restless,  only  smile  at  the  folly  of  wan- 
dering? And  there  in  Peking  the  kites  hang 
over  the  courts  and  the  sound  of  the  wind  is 
in  the  sycamores.  One  moment  more  behind 
the  walls  of  the  old  gray  city  and  I  had  been 
deaf  to  the  call  of  the  great  world  outside — so 
faintly  it  falls  there  in  the  gardens  of  Asia. 

Across  the  aisle  the  General  dozes  in  his 
great  red-lined  cape-coat,  his  piratical  mus- 
tache doing  solitary  duty  in  his  military  face; 
over  the  top  of  my  seat  a  tall  astrakhan  cap 
blots  the  dim  window  space  like  an  adver- 
tisement of  "Popoff's  Popular  Tea";  the 
cap  signifies  Dmitri  Nikolai vitch  Novinsky, 
attache  of  the  legation  in  Peking.  Could 
une  jeune  Americaine  possess  two  stranger 
guardians?  The  whole  affair  is  incredible. 
It  is  necessary  to  record  it  carefully,  me- 
thinks,  to  make  sure  I  am  not  a  little  mad. 

In  the  first  place,  am  I  the  person  who  voy- 
aged across  the  Pacific  for  a  wedding  in  the 
Orient — Lise's  wedding — little  Lise,  that  pi- 
quant figure  whom  Chance  threw  across  my 
path  in  Egypt,  grown  since  a  permanent 
figure  in  my  world ;  little  Lise  reared  in  every 

4 


"Why  am  I  a  roamer  in  these 
white  wastes?" 


THE   CHINESE    EXPRESS 

unknown  corner  of  diplomacy  in  the  East; 
little  Lise,  a  woman  choosing  now  a  mate,  set- 
ting out  on  the  long,  long  trail — passed  on 
into  an  unfamiliar  land  into  which  I  can  no 
longer  follow  her?  The  images  make  it  seem 
more  than  half  a  dream:  the  lights  gleaming 
across  the  spaces  of  cool  dark  floors,  yellow 
figures  in  brocades,  flaming  Oriental  charac- 
ters of  joy  on  all  the  windows,  the  color  of 
diplomatic  uniforms,  Lise's  father  silent  and 
dark,  Lise  herself  in  her  film  of  white,  and 
that  strange,  strange  expression. 

Granted  this,  am  I,  further,  the  person  who 
three  months  ago  was  caravaning  in  Mongolia? 
Can  it  be  that  for  any  one  the  world,  three 
months  ago,  was  wool-caravans  emerging 
through  the  morning  mists;  horsemen  mys- 
teriously silhouetted  against  the  horizon; 
shimmering  gold  of  rape-fields  and  deep  in- 
digo distances?  It  is  strange  to  enter  the 
desert,  but  stranger  still  to  come  out  to  a 
world  disrupting.  Plunge  a  man  into  chaos 
out  of  a  solitude  starred  with  gentian,  larkspur, 
and  a  tiny  creeping  moonflower,  if  you  would 
break  his  rhythm  of  joy. 

"What  has  happened  down  there  since  we 
have  been  up  here  in  eternity?"  I  remember 

5 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

it  was  Lise's  philosophical  French  friend  who 
pondered,  as  the  slow  cart-wheels  bore  us 
along  the  great  road  which  for  ages  has  poured 
the  caravans  into  China. 

1 '  Nothing !"  I  replied,  dogmatically.  ' '  Noth- 
ing ever  happens  down  there  in  the  world." 

It  was  one  night  while  the  caravaners  sat 
on  the  k'ang  of  a  mud-walled  inn,  beyond  the 
Great  Wall,  that  the  news  of  the  war  came, 
creeping  in  there  on  the  fringe  of  things,  like 
rumors  of  the  Judgment  Day;  a  messenger 
splashing  the  white  dust  of  the  road,  de- 
spatches in  his  bag  for  the  living  Buddha  in 
Urga,  but  no  idea  in  his  flat  Mongol  head  of 
who  was  friend  and  who  was  foe.  All  along 
the  road  the  next  day  it  was  the  same  tale: 
we  questioned  the  Chinese  hawkers  with 
cages  swung  on  poles  across  their  shoulders, 
but  they  had  no  news  beyond  the  price  of 
thrushes;  the  Russian  tea-merchant,  too,  was 
uninformed — but  the  canny  merchant  was 
folding  his  blue  summer  tent  and  stealing 
away  to  the  north!  In  the  sun-baked  border 
city  Kalgan,  the  tobacco  men — young  Brit- 
ishers and  Americans — announced  "  Der  Tag." 
Adventist  missionaries  prophesied  the  coming 
of  Christ  and  prepared  to  ascend  in  chariots 


THE   CHINESE   EXPRESS 

of  fire,  while  we  scurried  for  the  first  train  to 
Peking. 

Far  and  swift  a  man  may  travel  alone,  but 
when  danger  threatens — the  call  of  the  pack. 
The  fierce  hunger  of  kind  for  kind  which  ran 
through  my  blood,  as  we  struck  through  the 
Great  Wall  and  raced  by  train  down  that 
narrow  pass  for  Peking,  shot  a  light  on  some  of 
Old  Nature's  secrets.  Every  moment  the  air 
thickened  with  the  sense  of  something  sinister 
like  a  dust-storm  from  the  Gobi.  Something 
was  happening  over  there — the  world  was 
breaking  up — not  this  barbarism,  but  civiliza- 
tion— our  world — and  we  were  barred  out- 
side! In  Peking  the  storm  broke;  Peking 
seething  with  chaos  such  as  dazed  us,  children 
of  the  desert.  The  banks,  the  legation,  the 
Wagon  Lit s  swarmed  angrily — knots  of  French, 
German,  British,  Austrians  gathered  on  the 
corners.  Over  there,  across  Asia,  the  world 
was  breaking  up.  Legation  Street,  where 
rickshas  passed  to  afternoon  tea,  clattered 
with  the  horses  of  the  French  guard  in  red 
and  blue  capes — off  to  Europe;  Sikhs  at  the 
gates  of  the  British  legation  tightened  their 
red  turbans  and  caressed  their  carbines  with 
lustrous  eyes;  and  the  industrious  little 

7 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

browns,  under  cover  of  a  legation  guard, 
poured  in  sufficient  troops  to  take  the  Chinese 
capital.  Peking  is  a  mountain-top;  but  the 
old  gray  city  has  seen  few  finer  spectacles  in 
the  valleys  below  than  the  first  records  of  the 
cosmic  earthquake — all  under  the  apricot- 
tiled  and  tilted  roofs  in  the  sunny  August 
weather! 

Et  moil  I,  too,  wished  to  stream  toward 
Europe.  And  why  not?  Russia  has  always 
been  my  desire,  since  I  could  remember  my 
godmother's  first  reading  to  me  Russian 
poetry. 

Shall  I  ever  forget  the  smell  of  that  Chinese 
rain  swirling  down  Legation  Street  as  I 
picked  my  way  across  to  the  double-eagle 
bronze  gates  behind  which  the  Russians  had 
handsomely  consoled  themselves  after  the 
Boxer  indiscretion?  Even  before  the  trek 
into  Mongolia,  and  before  the  war-lords  had 
frowned,  I  had  paid  my  gold  for  a  ticket  across 
Siberia.  Why  should  one's  Government  send 
ministers  abroad  so  firmly  and  paternally  to 
forbid  one's  heart's  desire?  The  Russians 
would  be  more  kind.  I  passed  the  wildish 
dun-colored  Cossack  guard  at  the  double- 
eagle  gates.  In  ante-bellum  days  I  had  dined 

8 


THE   CHINESE    EXPRESS 

with  Lise's  friends  behind  these  same  bronze 
gates,  but  the  great  white  houses,  barren  as 
bird-cages,  seemed  to  have  increased  in  num- 
ber and  imposingness.  The  blond  First  Sec- 
retary, who  maintains  Russia's  reputation  for 
diplomacy  in  the  East,  was  far  less  fearsome 
than  the  Cossack  guard,  his  eyes  a  Botticelli 
blue  even  against  the  blue  walls  of  his  study; 
the  hands,  which  toyed  with  a  bronze  paper- 
weight, white  and  powerful,  with  fine  golden 
hair  at  the  wrists. 

"To  cross  Siberia!  Ny,  Mademoiselle!" 
He  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  threw  out  his 
hands  in  a  Slavic  gesture.  "The  road  is 
crowded,  jammed  with  men  and  horses  and 
guns.  Who  knows?  You  might  be  left  for 
weeks  in  a  Siberian  village." 

"Shto  dyelatch,  Monsieur?  I  have  long  ago 
given  my  heart  to  Russia.  I  have  all  but  put 
my  eyes  out  over  your  queer  diddling  alpha- 
bet, and  now  that  it  is  really  fascinating,  you 
forbid  it.  Shto  dyelatch?" 

'"Shto  dyelatch!'  Ah,  Mademoiselle."  He 
put  down  the  paper-weight;  he  smiled;  his 
eyes  searched  me  acutely  for  symptoms  of  a 
spy,  and  he  smiled  again — the  smile  of  a  big 
country.  "  Nu  vot!  the  road  may  clear.  I 

9 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

will  send  you  across,  but  it  may  be  months. 
Have  you  Russian  patience?" 

Patience!  I  could  give  points  to  Job  in 
several  languages.  Three  months  I  have  sat 
behind  the  walls  of  the  old  gray  city.  I  am  so 
disorganized  with  patience  that  the  sight  of  a 
chit,  delivered  this  morning  by  a  coolie  from 
the  Russian  legation,  sucked  at  my  breath 
like  "the  sight  of  a  tiger's  tail  in  the  spring." 
Had  any  one  supposed  that  I  really  wished 
to  cross  to  Russia,  to  leave  this  apricot-tiled 
city,  the  "last  rampart  of  romance"? 

"MADEMOISELLE  [the  note  ran  in  Russian 
— an  inconvenient  compliment], — The  trans- 
Siberian  is  still  crowded  with  troops.  It  is 
no  time  for  a  traveler — least  of  all  a  woman — 
to  be  abroad.  [I  could  see  the  giant  First 
Secretary  driving  the  words  along  under  the 
signed  portrait  of  Nicholas  II.]  "One  of  our 
Generals  leaves  to-morrow,  however,  with 
an  attache.  The  General  will  be  pleased  to 
look  after  your  safeguard.  If  you  must  go — 
bon  voyage!" 

Bon  voyage  into  these  desolate  wastes! 

Before  the  steppe  completely  annihilates 
us,  I  wish  to  record  one  fact !  It  is  not  I  who 
wills  this  journey.  It  is  something  quite  im- 

IO 


THE    CHINESE    EXPRESS 

personal  within  me,  that  something  which  per- 
mits me  no  word  as  to  the  size,  shape,  or  color 
of  my  destiny;  that  uncaring  something 
packed  my  luggage,  bought  a  Mongolian  dog- 
skin for  bitter  nights  and  pitched  me  into 
this!  If  it  is  gipsy  blood,  bad  'cess  to  it. 
If  it  is  career — worse  'cess  to  it!  The  only 
concession  to  me  was  of  the  finest  silk  in  Silk 
Street,  turquoise  blue,  and  neat  about  the 
ankles!  I  shiver  over  my  dogskin  rug  at  this 
level  wildness.  "Only  fools  enter  Siberia  in 
mid-winter,"  I  can  hear  Peking  warn — I  know 
she  speaks  truth — as  the  train  pulls  out  and 
she  slams  the  shadows  of  the  Ch'e-men  against 
us,  and  then,  to  give  point  to  her  wisdom, 
slowly,  one  by  one,  drops  her  four  massive 
walls — barricading  us  outside  in  snow-dunes, 
which  threaten  to  rush  in  and  blot  us  out, 
who  dare  move  in  the  face  of  their  infinity. 

The  sun  was  tumbling  out  of  a  Chinese-blue 
sky  when  I  awoke  this  morning.  Since  the 
General  has  looked  in  to  inquire  after  the 
health  of  I'Americaine,  I  feel  less  certain  of 
extinction.  Very  distingue  the  General,  with 
his  lean  body,  his  Hindenburg  mustache  and 
his  eagle  look,  hurrying  to  join  the  staff  at  the 
front.  He  wears  fatigue  dress — blue  trousers 

ii 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

with  a  red  stripe  at  the  side,  a  khaki-colored 
coat  and  a  cross  of  St.  George  where  the  col- 
lar closes.  I  had  not  met  him  until  I  became 
his  protegee,  but  I  have  a  vivid  image  of 
this  military  figure  clattering  down  Morrison 
Street  with  outriders.  M.  Novinsky,  the 
attache,  is  a  slim,  exquisite  Russian  with 
long  eyes  and  a  serene  smile,  as  immaculate 
as  if  he  had  just  stepped  from  Piccadilly;  a 
type  of  Russian  incredible  to  Americans  bred 
on  lithographs  of  stout  gentlemen  in  Cossack 
beards  and  flannel  shirts.  We  sat  opposite 
at  dinner  once  in  the  great  white  glavnaya 
missiya  and  have  bowed  since  from  our 
passing  rickshas.  Curiously  enough,  I  re- 
member him  from  among  the  other  attaches 
and  secretaries. 

It  was  while  I  was  standing  at  the  window 
this  afternoon,  watching  the  purple  hills  of 
Shan-hai-kwan  blocking  themselves  ruggedly 
in  the  sunset  and  wishing  that  I  might  see  the 
Great  Wall,  after  fourteen  hundred  miles  of 
mountain- tops,  take  its  leap  into  the  sea, 
when  this  finished  product  of  civilization 
joined  me. 

"You  are  sad  to  leave  the  East,  Mademoi- 
selle?" he  asked,  with  a  quaint  precision  of 

12 


THE   CHINESE    EXPRESS 

enunciation  and  a  timbre  of  voice  distinctly 
un-English. 

"Yes,"  I  admitted,  a  bit  disconsolately, 
lifting  my  gaze  to  an  immaculate  collar.  "Is 
it  not  absurd?  With  every  moment  the  old 
gray  walls  unroll,  I  realize  that  I  am  leav- 
ing what  are  no  longer  symbols  of  a  strange 
civilization,  but  signs  of  a  land  dearly  be- 
loved." 

"  No,  it  is  not  absurd,"  he  returned,  gravely, 
with  his  eyes  on  the  liquid  amethyst  of  the 
mountains,  while  the  train  rushed  on  into  the 
hollow  North.  "It  depends  upon  what  you 
ask  of  a  land.  If  it  is  to  forget  days  that  are 
'sullen  and  gray  and  bereft,'  China,  more 
than  any  other  land,  except  Egypt,  can  gild 
life  with  romance." 

I  glanced  at  the  neatly  knit  figure,  the 
beautifully  cut  mouth  and  melancholy  eyes 
turned  on  the  steppe.  A  figure  I  could  have 
imagined  in  Japan,  but  in  great,  dirty,  pictu- 
resque China — never. 

"Is  it  that  one  may  not  ask  for  romance?" 
I  inquired.  "What  will  your  Great  Russia 
give?" 

"Russia?"  he  repeated  slowly,  as  the  tem- 
ple roofs  of  a  walled  city  emerged  from  the 

13 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

dusk,  "Russia — something  far  more  poignant 
and  homely  than  this!" 

Nu,  each  to  his  own  East.  The  Slav  to  his, 
whatever  it  may  be,  and  I  to  mine — the  junks, 
and  the  pagodas  among  the  azaleas,  and  the 
sound  of  the  wind  in  the  bamboo  groves. 

Twenty-four  hours  to  the  north  as  the 
geese  fly!  Twenty-four  hours  of  blue  figures 
bending  rhythmically  in  fields  and  of  quaint 
roofs  angling  the  sky!  Twenty-four  hours  I 
had  been  lost  in  the  dream  that  the  Chinese 
themselves  dreamed  for  thousands  of  honorable 
years,  that  never  could  one  pass  the  boun- 
daries of  the  Middle  Kingdom — when  some- 
thing new  shot  out  of  the  day's  end — the 
gas-lights  of  a  modern  station,  trains  shrieking, 
porters  hurrying  luggage. 

"Mukden!"  The  General's  red-lined  cape 
gleamed  in  the  dusky  car  at  the  door  of  my 
compartment.  "Civilization  and  soap.  Made- 
moiselle!" 

Civilization  and  soap!  It  was  like  being 
rolled  from  a  silken  scroll  into  a  twentieth- 
century  serial. 

"Civilization  and  soap,"  I  shuddered.  Over 
there  in  the  dark,  somewhere,  there  were  an- 

14 


THE   CHINESE   EXPRESS 

cient  Manchu  palaces.  I  peered  into  the 
darkness  pendent  with  silver  mists. 

"Yes."  His  excellency  tightened  his  belt. 
"There  is  just  time  for  dinner.  You  will  find 
Japanese  creditable  cooks." 

When  the  two  had  departed  to  consult  the 
little  brown  Swiss  of  the  East  I  voyaged  about 
the  station  sniffing  the  variegated  potpourri  of 
the  Orient.  The  station  was  unpromisingly 
modern,  but  its  occupants  were  drawn  from 
the  oldest  reservoirs  of  life  in  the  world. 
Chinese  and  Japanese  sprawled  in  sundry 
attitudes  and  varied  garments;  a  Korean  sat 
in  the  corner,  in  his  bird-cage  hat;  on  the 
floor  lay  bundles  of  fur.  Bundles  of  fur! 
After  these,  nothing  held  me.  Sleeping  Rus- 
sians they  were,  in  from  the  Far  North,  that 
mysterious  terra  incognita  into  which  within  an 
hour  we  ourselves  should  be  whirling. 

The  terror  of  that  first  plunge  into  the  bit- 
ter shadowy  night  of  the  Farther  North! 
Peking  had  been  but  a  prelude;  this  was  the 
precipice.  Mukden  itself  is  wind-swept  enough 
— Heaven  knows ! — huddling  there  in  the  pale 
of  the  Arctic  storms;  but,  at  least,  it  has 
lights,  humanity,  and  roofs.  Its  soft-winking 
beacons  called  across  the  snow  like  lorelei — 

15 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

lorelei  of  fires  and  hearth.  I  confess  that  I 
watched  them  dim  and  vanish  across  the 
widening  white  with  no  slight  misgiving  and 
a  frenzied  desire  to  rush  back  and  claim  sanc- 
tuary before  it  was  too  late.  But  there  was 
no  turning  back.  The  mists  had  begun  to 
shroud  us  in  their  phantom  pall.  We  were 
already  committed  to  the  steppe. 

They  are  wonderfully  sympathetic,  these 
Russians,  and  deeply  and  properly  impressed 
with  the  responsibility  of  VAmericaine.  The 
General  says  that  I  am  not  American,  but 
north  Italian  in  type;  M.  Novinsky  does  not 
comment  upon  my  type.  They  were  stand- 
ing guard  over  my  place  when  I  turned  from 
my  vigil  at  the  window,  and  then  I  discovered 
the  reason.  The  world  was  present  but  not 
his  wife.  With  the  exception  of  the  feminine, 
it  was  a  miniature  cosmos.  Seven  fat  Chinese 
disposed  their  fur-lined  brocades  and  settled 
their  embonpoint  comfortably  on  the  seats; 
nine  Japanese  tucked  their  feet  under  cumu- 
lative kimonos;  the  Standard  Oil  men,  trim- 
mers of  the  "lamp  of  Asia,"  the  Swedish 
minister,  the  General,  and  M.  Novinsky 
settled  in  their  greatcoats.  Each  traveler 
drew  about  him  whatever  mantle  race  had 

16 


THE   CHINESE    EXPRESS 

provided  him.  The  car  stared  internationally 
and  then  fell  into  slumber.  That  is,  all  but 
M.  Novinsky,  whom  I  could  see  from  the 
corner  of  one  sleepy  eye,  proud  as  Lucifer, 
immobile  as  the  Buddha  of  Kamakura,  while 
opposite  him  a  wadded  Chinese  slept  the 
unconcerned  sleep  of  the  East.  The  aris- 
tocratic tradition  is,  I  have  observed,  some- 
times inconvenient. 

Mukden  had  been  cold,  but  this  place  where 
I  awoke  surely  went  below  thermometer 
range.  The  British- American  Tobacco  man 
and  the  Standard  Oil  men  had  vanished  in  the 
night — the  last  symbol  erased  from  my  fa- 
miliar world.  Frost  eliminated  the  land- 
scape. From  a  hollow  drumlike  distance 
came  the  sound  of  bells,  deep-toned  Buddhists 
and  momentary  ecstatics  punctuating  the 
boom  of  the  great  ones.  The  General  had 
disappeared,  but  M.  Novinsky  stood  at  my 
elbow,  pale  as  Hamlet,  but  glossily  booted 
and  shining  as  to  hair.  It  seemed  an  uncon- 
ventional morning  encounter  with  an  im- 
maculate attache  of  the  Russian  legation! 

"What  is  it,  a  Charpentier  opera?"  I  de- 
manded, trying  to  make  a  clearing  in  the 
white  rime  of  my  window. 

17 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

"No  Charpentier,  but  Changchun,"  said 
M.  Novinsky,  rescuing  my  Mongolian  rug 
from  the  claws  of  a  rapacious  coolie.  "For 
us  it  is  breakfast." 

"Changchun?"  I  had  a  painfully  con- 
fused sense  of  Beveridge  and  Putnam  Weale. 
"I  know!"  I  cried,  with  sudden  enlighten- 
ment. "The  far  shore  line  of  Great  Russia 
where  the  'gray  stream  of  men  carrying  ikons, 
children  and  wives  crawls  down  upon  Man- 
churia never  to  retreat.' ' 

"Totchno"  agreed  M.  Novinsky.  "You 
speak  in  the  language  of  an  Imperial  ukase. 
At  least,  Mademoiselle,  if  your  feet  never 
stray  to  the  Back  of  the  Beyond — at  least 
you  have  stood  where  the  East  and  the  North 
tryst." 

The  hotel  is  only  a  stone's  throw  from  the 
station,  but  the  General  and  M.  Novinsky 
stowed  me  in  a  troika  and  we  dashed  up  in 
the  manner  of  a  De  Quincy  stage-coach,  as 
befitted  our  rank.  It  is  next  to  being  a  cousin 
to  royalty  to  travel  with  a  General.  The 
Russian  has  a  taste  for  the  dramatic  which  he 
seems  to  gratify.  Every  one  from  the  man- 
ager to  the  smallest  maltchik  draws  himself 
up  when  we  appear,  while  the  General  sails 

18 


THE    CHINESE    EXPRESS 

through  the  line,  very  fierce,  very  distingue, 
like  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolai  Nikolaievitch 
himself. 

And  now  the  escort  pay  etiquette  calls  at 
the  Russian  Consulate  while  I  finish  my 
Amur  caviare  and  read  the  Manchurian  wool 
market  to  the  bells  of  the  Near  and  Far 
Easts.  Extraordinary  paradoxes,  these  Rus- 
sians ;  the  most  easy-going  people  of  the  globe, 
and  the  most  punctilious.  At  least,  that  is 
the  General.  Monsieur  Novinsky,  though  of 
far  older  blood,  I  fancy,  seems  deeper  rooted 
in  gentleness.  Two  Samoyedes  steal  past  me 
in  long  surtouts  and  close  fur  caps.  Are  they 
also  of  the  same  nationality  as  the  General 
and  M.  Novinsky?  Already  I  sense  a  nation 
which  is  "not  a  nation  but  a  world." 

"I  shall  burn  a  candle  in  that  Chinese  tem- 
ple to  this  unco1  strange  journey,"  I  an- 
nounce, as  the  escort  depart. 

"Better  a  taper  for  Nicolas,  the  Wonder- 
worker," the  General  calls  over  the  top  of  his 
fur  collar.  "The  Russian  gods  are  jealous 
gods.  And  these  are  the  skirts  of  Great 
Russia!" 

3 


II 

A  WAR   SPECIAL 

A  WAR  SPECIAL!  An  edition  de  luxe 
war  special  for  Russia!  Am  I  dream- 
ing? I  rub  my  finger  along  the  leather  seats 
and  the  mahogany  casing.  The  white  per- 
spective of  Harbin  streets  through  the  win- 
dow vanishes  a  bit  unreally  but  the  izvost- 
chiks  are  solid  enough,  and  the  Cossacks  clump- 
ing about  with  bread,  and  the  shaggy  ponies. 
And  there  through  the  world,  in  the  direction 
my  heels  point,  prosaic  creatures  are  sitting 
in  offices,  attending  committees  and  taking  the 
elevated ! 

Ivan  Caspitch,  the  General's  orderly,  a 
taffy-colored  Grenadier,  has  just  brought  a 
samovar  and  red-currant  jam.  Ivan  Cas- 
pitch's  idea  of  the  world  is  sorrow,  which 
must  be  drowned  in  tea  and  jam.  It  is  the 
Russian  post-train  that  has  left  me  like  this, 
a  fossil  of  prehistoric  man,  caught  through  the 

20 


A   WAR    SPECIAL 

ages  with  my  knees  under  my  chin,  and  the 
object  of  Ivan  Caspitch's  pity. 

"Like  the  Russian  Government,"  M.  Nov- 
insky  declares  the  post,  "meant  to  develop 
an  eyeless,  mindless,  collapsible  creature." 

For  myself  I  should  not  have  minded,  but 
it  offended  my  sense  of  things  as  they  should 
be  to  see  the  General's  glory  eclipsed  in  a 
crevice.  Deep  frost  covered  the  window, 
eliminating  the  landscape.  It  was  too  dark 
to  read,  and  one  of  the  Forbiddens  was  to 
lower  the  candle  which  warred  with  the  Pow- 
ers of  Darkness  in  the  upper  regions  of  the 
car.  The  guard,  a  surreptitious  person  in  a 
vast  beard,  hovered  about  the  door,  peering 
in  at  irregular  intervals  as  if  to  surprise  IT 
out  of  us. 

"Whatever  it  is,  I  do  not  know,"  I  pro- 
tested to  the  General  at  the  end  of  a  tortuous 
hour,  "but  for  the  grace  of  God  and  having 
been  born  in  America,  I  might  be  in  the 
Siberian  salt-mines." 

"You  should  have  become  accustomed  to 
spying  in  Japan,"  suggested  the  General. 

"Japanese  spying  is  something  tangible,"  I 
argued.  "If  one  must  have  his  luggage  ran- 
sacked, the  Japanese  do  it  deftly  and  pack 

21 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

things  more  neatly  than  they  came  out.  And 
if  they  poke  holes  in  the  shoji — after  all,  they 
are  their  own  shoji.  But  this — this  is  an 
evil  spell." 

"It  may  be  a  bad  system,  but  it  works. 
Russia  needs  a  strong  hand."  The  General 
pulled  his  long  mustache. 

The  train-master  had  announced  that  we 
should  be  in  Harbin  by  eleven,  but  this 
statement  was  Oriental  tact  and  not  truth. 
It  was  two  before  we  saw  a  delicate  coronet 
of  lights  scattering  on  the  shining  disk  of 
plain.  I  buried  my  nose  in  my  dogskin;  the 
cold  would  crumple  me  up  like  a  mimosa  leaf, 
while  the  Russians  would  step  forth  heroically 
into  their  element,  their  native  North.  And 
then  I  discovered  another  of  Old  Nature's 
secrets.  The  Russians  pulled  their  furs  and 
shivered  in  their  greatcoats.  Too  many  cen- 
turies had  winds  from  glaciers  blown  in  their 
faces,  and  laid  deep  in  their  memory  a  race- 
terror,  while  I,  with  a  less  bitter  ancestral 
memory,  breathed  greedily  of  freedom  and  the 
ecstasy  of  space!  Sky,  black  velvet  and 
crystal;  stars,  pendent  points  of  light,  and 
the  plain  a  luminous  blue-white  reflector; 
horses  with  high-arched  collars;  furs  shag- 

22 


A   WAR   SPECIAL 

gily  blotching  the  snow.  A  magnificent  fan- 
tasie.  It  rushed  upon  me,  an  engulfing  sea. 
It  was  the  North — the  Siberian  North!  It 
rocked  in  my  ears  like  a  storm;  the  brilliant 
savage  North!  I  looked  to  the  horizons;  in 
every  direction  sped  these  terrible  white  dis- 
tances. Somewhere  there  in  those  prehistoric 
gulfs,  Breshkovskaya  had  kept  burning  her 
lamp,  and  Dostoevski,  Gorky,  and  countless 
hundreds  of  the  flaming  hearts  of  Russia. 

The  station  was  dank  and  dreary  after  the 
sonorous  level  of  the  steppe,  dank  and  dreary 
and  futile  as  are  all  things  human  after  great 
spaces.  I  was  glad  that  the  General  was 
Viking-tall  and  easy  to  follow,  for  the  crowd 
moved  about  with  a  weary,  troubled  confusion. 
Everything  was  written  anew  in  symbols  of 
the  North.  Everybody  was  fur-clad,  cap-d- 
pie  even  to  the  newsgirl.  I  liked  the  skin- 
side-inside-fur-side-outside  coats  of  the  nos- 
iltchiki,  perhaps  because  I  liked  the  nosilt- 
chiki  themselves;  burly,  bearded  chaps,  with 
the  vigor  of  the  North  in  their  sinews  and  the 
fear  of  God  in  their  faces.  But  it  was  murky 
after  the  steppe.  And  the  smell!  It  rose  in 
clouds  like  incense,  it  descended  like  London 
fog — an  intermingling  of  the  odors  of  horses, 

23 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

sheep,  koumiss,  and  unwashed  humanity;  the 
smell  which  the  Mongolian  tents  take  on  from 
sheltering  the  little  "brothers  of  the  field  "- 
calves  and  new-born  lambs;  the  "distinctive 
but  not  unpleasant"  odor  of  which  the  great 
Tolstoi  writes.  I  was  tired  with  the  rocking 
of  the  train,  and  cumulatively  sleepy,  and  I 
had  grave  doubts  whether  Tolstoi  were  not, 
after  all,  a  barbarian. 

The  man  whose  lantern  has  two  sides — 
East  and  West — soon  becomes  an  epicure  of 
contrasts.  The  delight  I  take  in  nights  spent 
in  a  mud-walled  Mongolian  inn  among  the 
wool-carts,  set  over  against  the  memory  of  the 
Savoy  in  season,  is  more  thrilling  than  any  a 
collector  of  Whistler  wrests  from  his  treasure. 
And  I  hug  now  the  joy  I  shall  take  in  a  bill  for 
nine  cents — night's  lodging  for  seven  people, 
three  horses  and  a  donkey — against  my  next 
squandering  of  gold  in  the  tents  of  the  West. 

I  was  lost  in  my  musing  when  the  General 
and  M.  Novinsky  plucked  me  from  contem- 
plation of  the  skin  coats. 

"No  train  to-night!"  The  General  drew 
his  great  red-lined  cape  about  him  and  led 
the  way  outside  to  the  hotel  sleighs.  What 
would  the  Savoy  or  the  Plaza  say  to  such  a 

24 


A    WAR    SPECIAL 

trio  at  such  an  hour?  Doubtless  a  superb 
contrast  to  the  comment  of  the  bearded  genii 
who  presides  here  on  the  edge  of  things  where 
the  Ten  Commandments  are  not,  character- 
ized by  curiosity  but  no  phrases. 

"One  piecee  A-number-one  laidee,"  he  said 
to  the  Chinese  boy  in  blue.  "One  piecee  A- 
number-one  room." 

" How,'"  acquiesced  the  Celestial,  and  with 
a  simple  how  I  was  committed  to  a  room,  sealed 
but  for  one  hinged  pane;  there  I  slept  the 
sleep  of  the  East  under  a  goatskin  rug.  I 
discovered  the  next  morning  that  the  sheets 
were  exquisite  table  linen.  I  cannot  explain 
why,  but  it  is  Russian  that  they  should  have 
been  so,  especially  Siberian  Russian,  but  it  is 
true.  Harbin  has  the  atmosphere  of  a  gold 
camp.  But  the  memory  of  that  night — the 
mingling  of  alien  voices,  Japanese  and  Rus- 
sian, that  rose  from  that  fetid  hot-box  below 
the  howling  of  the  wind  and  the  sharp,  cold 
terror  of  those  gulfs  of  gray  mists! 

It  is  amazing  how  naturally  I  have  accepted 
M.  Novinsky's  serene  figure  in  my  world. 
Glossily  booted  and  impeccable,  he  was  look- 
ing up  at  me  from  the  foot  of  the  stairs  when 
I  appeared  this  morning. 

25 


MISS    AMERIKANKA 

" Nu!  AmeHcaine,"  he  said,  his  long  gray 
eyes  stirring  with  a  smile,  "the  road  is 
blocked  by  a  tangle  of  trains.  We  may  miss 
the  one  express  that  crawls  out  to  Irkutsk. 
You  know  Kipling  calls  us  '  the  most  westernly 
of  Easterns." 

I  felt  a  sudden  access  of  enthusiasm.  "The 
best  drama  in  the  world,  I  assure  you,  is  a 
Chinese  street  quarrel.  And  an  actor  once 
told  me  that  he  liked  playing  these  Russian 
tempers,  because  they  are  inexhaustible." 

Did  Rachel  and  Bernhardt,  I  wonder,  learn 
their  furies  from  these  boundless,  timeless 
Orientals?  For  an  hour  strange  words  hissed 
and  scratched — expletives  purely  Slavonic  and 
unintelligible  burned  off  over  the  wires  in 
every  direction.  I  have  no  quarrel  with  a 
Russian  rage;  it  appeals  to  me  as  admirably 
effective.  Behold  for  us,  at  least,  a  result 
magnifique!  A  war  special  stands  on  the  sid- 
ing being  caparisoned  for  a  dash  across  Si- 
beria. One  coach,  an  1830  engine  piled  high 
with  wood  which  is  roped  on  at  every 
conceivable  angle,  the  whole  looking  like  one 
of  those  overburdened  donkeys  one  sees  along 
the  wall  in  Peking. 

The  vista  ahead  drops  away  in  a  vast  white 
it 


A   WAR   SPECIAL 

fog.  Down  that  phantom-white  distance  the 
wind  is  rising,  the  snow  eddies  past  the  win- 
dows in  plumy  white  swirls,  and  with  every 
swirl  the  unknown  there  grows  fleecier.  The 
General  strides  up  and  down  the  platform,  a 
gaunt  figure,  his  great  red-lined  cape  unfurling 
behind  him  like  the  wings  of  a  monstrous  bird, 
while  Cossack  orderlies  provision  the  car,  their 
striped  trousers  moving  briskly  over  the 
snow.  The  General  brings  always  the  same 
curious  vision  before  my  eyes :  armies  march- 
ing and  countermarching,  spreading  myriad- 
wise  over  the  plain ;  the  passion  of  war;  mill- 
ions tramping  to  their  death ;  the  music  of  the 
battle-hymns.  Certainly  through  the  General 
courses  little  of  Pushkin's  "dove-blood  of  the 
Slav"! 

Three  young  officers  have  come  down  from 
the  barracks  to  greet  their  superior  officer 
and  stand  about  in  delightful  trepidation. 
One  little  captain's  wife,  who  evidently  knows 
her  way  about  the  world,  arrives  armed  with 
roasted  ryabtchiks  and  a  bottle  of  Madeira. 
The  car  is  a  first-class  car  filched  from  the 
Russian  express,  fitted  with  mahogany  and 
velvet  and  luxuriously  appointed — as  the  Rus- 
sians know  how  to  appoint.  The  General 

27 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

stalks  through  the  car,  followed  by  the  or- 
derly. 

"This  half  of  the  car,  Mademoiselle  Ameri- 
caine,"  he  decrees,  with  an  authoritative  wave 
of  his  hand,  "is  your  domain — drawing-room, 
bedroom,  room  to  spare.  M.  Novinsky  and  I 
enter  only  by  your  permission.  Ivan  Cas- 
pitch  will  stow  away  your  bags."  And  he 
withdraws  in  form  and  with  distinction — a 
masterly  retreat. 

Ivan  Caspitch  appears  with  the  Siberian 
crab-apple  maid  I  have  borrowed  from  the 
hotel  for  the  sake  of  les  convenances  until  we 
reach  Irkutsk,  red-aproned  and  a  bundle  un- 
der each  arm.  More  officers,  more  kvass,  more 
food,  more  wood !  Katya  eyes  both  the  steppe 
and  me  with  foreboding  and  crosses  herself 
broadly.  It  would  be  difficult  to  say  which 
she  fears  most — the  steppe  or  VAmericaine. 

Ahead  lies  the  dim  abyss,  filled  with  a 
misty  whiteness  which  showers  from  the  sky 
moment  by  moment,  hour  by  hour — a  strange, 
uncharted,  soundless  sea.  Ten  thousand 
miles  of  silence,  ten  thousand  miles  of  white 
and  tideless  ocean!  Snow — flying,  drifting, 
swirling  snow.  The  belted  krestyanki  and 
izvostchiks  wave  as  we  leave  the  siding. 

28 


A   WAR    SPECIAL 

"Gospode  tebye!  Gospode  tebye!"  shout  the 
hairy  giants  as  we  pull  slowly  out. 

"It  might  be  Peary's  dash  for  the  Pole  or 
Shackleton's  relief,"  I  murmur,  as  the  strange 
trio  of  us  stand  at  the  window,  off  for  Europe. 

"It  might  be  anything  thrilling  and  ro- 
mantic if  it  were  not  for  that  absurd  engine," 
grants  M.  Novinsky.  "It  so  resembles  a 
donkey  that  I  cannot  believe  but  that  at  the 
last  moment  it  will  have  to  be  led  into  the 
mystery." 


Ill 

BLOTTING  THE  ESCUTCHEON 

WHAT  a  strange  fabric  of  impressions 
this  journey  across  Siberia  leaves  in 
one's  hands!  A  naked  level  flowing  to  the 
far  horizon,  white  above  and  gray  below,  and 
in  that  rim  between  earth  and  sky  something 
dark  that  flies  and  flies  before  the  wind.  It 
is  the  mystery  of  all  great  spaces — of  Mon- 
golia— of  Egypt.  But  there  is  no  touch  of 
gold  here,  no  sun,  no  heat,  no  shimmering 
sand,  no  intense  physical  mystery.  All  is 
dead,  misty  white;  the  mystery  of  tundra,  of 
forests  and  night  and  death;  the  mystery 
which  the  Russian  has  written  into  his  litera- 
ture— of  Raskolnikoff,  of  Orloff  and  Anna  and 
Vronsky.  Silence,  space,  death — and  furious 
movement.  I  never  shall  and  never  wish  to 
lose  the  memory  of  these  snow-dunes.  For 
me  there  is  healing  in  these  spaces,  release  for 
the  fretted  prisoner  of  self,  and  escape  from 

30 


BLOTTING   THE   ESCUTCHEON 

the  emphatically  individual.  It  is  one  with 
the  assurance  that  the  Orient  had  given  me — 
the  peace  of  the  knowledge  that  life  is  but 
episodic,  a  fragment  of  cloud  scudding  across 
a  night  sky  and  soon  to  be  merged  with  the 
whole. 

The  General  pores  all  day  over  maps  and 
war  manuals  while  M.  Novinsky  and  I  ex- 
plore the  world  like  a  pair  of  Robinson  Crusoes. 
In  spite  of  our  importance,  we  are  on  a 
military  schedule,  and  sometimes  we  sit  on 
the  steppe  for  hours  while  the  Cossacks 
stretch  their  legs  and  walk  the  sturdy  Siberian 
ponies  about  in  the  snow.  They  are  not  hand- 
some, these  trans-Baikal  troops  with  whom 
we  fraternize  while  the  trains  tangle.  Sun 
and  wind  and  rain  have  reduced  them  to  the 
monochrome  of  the  steppe  until  they  might 
almost  be  said  to  have  protective  coloring. 
They  are  gaited,  too,  like  Mongols;  the  gait 
of  men  bred  to  ride,  not  to  walk,  and  un- 
familiar with  their  legs. 

"They  do  not  look  particularly  fierce,"  I 
observed  to  M.  Novinsky,  as  we  clambered  off 
the  train  yesterday  to  cross  the  tracks. 

"No  man  can  look  fierce  with  a  loaf  of 
bread  under  one  arm  and  a  pan  of  milk  under 

31 


the  other,"  answered  M.  Novinsky.  "The 
Czar's  special  fighting  men,  nevertheless;  they 
wear  the  Cossack  stripe  from  cradle  to  grave — 
and  like  their  fighting  well  enough.  Of  all 
the  troops,  they  alone  can  never  understand 
why  they  should  make  prisoners.  If  a  man 
is  dead,  you  can  take  his  boots." 

The  General  strides  about  like  a  giant  sand- 
piper, pulling  his  military  mustache.  "The 
hardest  troops  in  Europe,"  he  vows.  "Black 
bread  and  a  bit  of  straw;  it  is  sufficient.  But 
fools!" 

For  myself  I  must  confess  to  a  certain 
strangeness  about,  that  makes  our  ultilitarian 
civilization  pale  visibly. 

How  swiftly  Mongolia  unrolls  at  the  sight 
and  smell  of  the  ponies!  The  same  wiry 
beasts  I  have  ridden  with  a  llama  for  riding 
master  in  purple  and  orange  and  a  silver- 
pommeled  saddle.  They  are  bound  around 
with  memories,  memories  of  grazing  antelope, 
of  wool-carts  high  against  the  sky  in  a  notch 
of  the  pass,  of  wheeling  eagles  and  brown- 
skinned  shepherd  boys  piping  their  lays  on  the 
hillside. 

"A  chap  like  this  nearly  cost  me  my  life  once 
in  Turkestan,"  M.  Novinsky  said  yesterday, 

32 


BLOTTING   THE    ESCUTCHEON 

looking  oddly  incongruous  against  the  shag- 
giness  of  the  ponies,  rubbing  a  little  palmetto's 
nose  with  a  neat  dogskin  glove.  "I  had  been 
sent  on  a  mission  to  Kashgar;  seven  days  over 
granite  mountains,  and  then  the  plateau.  I 
got  some  devil's  sort  of  fever  that  made  it 
necessary  to  get  to  the  doctor.  One  of  the 
Cossack  ponies  fell  sick,  too.  'Find  another 
horse  and  we  will  push  on,'  I  ordered  the  next 
morning.  Do  you  think  that  beggar  Cossack 
would  leave  his  horse?  Not  he.  He  ex- 
pected a  flogging,  that  is  certain.  He  was 
exactly  like  the  quaking  lad  in  Kuprin's  story 
— do  you  remember?  'At  your  service,  your 
High  Excellency,'  he  would  say,  touching  his 
cap  a  hundred  times  a  day.  But  would  he 
leave  that  beast?  He  would  not.  And — 
well — I  couldn't  order  him  flogged!  And  so 
his  Majesty,  the  Czar  of  all  the  Russias,  in 
the  person  of  me,  waited  three  days  in  a 
Kirghiz  tent,  with  mosquitoes  and  flies  hold- 
ing festa.  There  were  compensations,  I  ad- 
mit. The  whole  village  turned  out  to  amuse 
me — dancing  and  theatricals  every  night  be- 
fore my  tent.  I  might  have  been  the  Pasha 
himself.  But  that's  another  story." 
"And  your  fever?" 

33 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

"My  fever?  The  pony  entirely  recovered 
— and  I,  too,  in  the  end,"  he  added  with  a 
smile.  "  Shto  dyelatch?  Loyalty  is  the  first 
principle  of  life.  A  Chinese  to  his  ancestors; 
a  woman  to  her  heart ;  a  Cossack  to  his  horse. 
I  liked  the  rascal  for  it,  and  when  I  came  back 
to  Peking  I  brought  him  with  me.  He  was 
the  most  faithful  servant  I  ever  had." 

Sometimes  we  explore  the  stations  for  food. 
If  I  did  not  know  by  a  hundred  other  proofs, 
I  should  be  convinced  now  that  M.  Novinsky 
is  a  gentleman  from  the  cheerfulness  with 
which  he  blots  the  future  ambassadorial 
escutcheon  by  eating  shchee,  greasy  cabbage 
soup,  at  long  tables  in  company  with  peasants 
and  izvostchiks,  to  humor  my  whim. 

"You  see,"  I  explained  to-day,  looking 
about  the  murky  station  dining-room  for  a 
means  to  vindicate  my  taste,  and  wondering 
what  Russian  etiquette  demanded  one  should 
do  with  a  slice  of  meat  and  an  egg  which  my 
spoon  had  fished  from  the  bottom  of  my 
soup,  "you  see,  they  are  all  old  friends  of 
mine,  from  Gorky  and  Tolstoi  and  Dostoevski 
and  all  the  rest.  Ten  years  I  have  known 
them,  but  I  never  had  a  samovar  with  them 
or  swelled  them  before.  You  know,  that  one 

34 


BLOTTING   THE   ESCUTCHEON 

over  there  at  the  end  of  the  table  is  Turgenev's 
Ermolai — you  remember,  with  the  dogs.  And 
that  lazy  one  is  Vankya  on  Levin's  estate — 
he  went  to  sleep  in  the  hay.  Don't  you 
recognize  him?  Look  at  the  way  they  fall 
upon  their  food  and  devour  it.  I  have  seen 
boatmen  on  a  Chinese  junk  eat  like  that  when 
they  have  been  poling  for  days  against  the 
wind  until  they  snarled  and  screamed  like 
beasts  with  the  effort.  It's  not  our  way — 
it's  hunger — " 

"Yes,  it's  hunger — red  hunger,"  rejoined 
M.  Novinsky,  "but,  Mademoiselle  Americaine, 
don't  imagine  they  are  not  old  friends  to  me!" 
he  added,  earnestly.  ' '  My  grandfather  owned 
several  thousand  of  them  and  my  mother  still 
holds  a  sort  of  matriarchy  down  on  her  estate 
in  Tver.  They  come  to  her  for  everything — 
food,  medicine,  justice.  It's  rather  nice  to 
see  her  holding  court  among  them.  .  .  .  Old 
friends !  Nu,  they  are  such  old  friends  as  you 
in  your  shifting  America  cannot  comprehend. 
My  boyhood  memories  are  all  bound  up  with 
them;  fishing  with  Petya,  dragging  out  in  the 
early  morning  and  walking  off  my  legs  in  the 
marshes  for  grouse,  fighting  forest  fires  with 
the  foresters  until  I  was  blacked  and  blistered, 
4  35 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

without  eyelashes,  and  ordered  off  to  the 
great  house.  And  lazy  summer  days,  lying 
on  my  back  under  the  limes,  while  old  Agatha, 
the  housekeeper,  jingled  her  keys  among  the 
storehouses  and  smuggled  me  gooseberry 
tarts,  which  I,  being  delicate,  was  forbidden. 
Nu,  they  are  friends  of  generations.  It  was 
one  thing  that  made  the  old  landlord  decent— 
the  responsibility  of  them.  What  to  do  with 
them  now,  there's  the  rub.  They  are  farther 
down  the  scale  than  the  Chinese  peasant,  of 
an  ignorance  that  you  cannot  imagine;  un- 
couth, canny,  but  superstitious  and  filled  with 
dark  mystical  and  political  passions.  The 
intelligentsia  have  fought  back  and  forth 
across  them  until  now  the  whole  land  is  sullen 
and  distrustful.  And  why  not?  To  move 
them,  that  is  not  impossible.  But  to  deter- 
mine their  direction  and  momentum — ah! 
With  the  first  touch  of  freedom  they  are 
dangerous  and  impractical — the  malaise  of 
too  long  thwarting." 

"There  is  something  here  that  I  never  felt 
even  in  the  far  regions  of  China,"  I  ventured, 
after  a  pause.  "It  is  to  descend  into  the 
earth  as  it  was  in  the  beginning." 

"That  is  Russia,"  said  M.  Novinsky,  with 
36 


BLOTTING   THE   ESCUTCHEON 

his  eyes  on  the  melancholy  horizon.  "The 
earth  as  it  was  in  the  beginning." 

The  mates  of  these  men  we  often  see  selling 
milk  and  game  at  the  stations,  the  wind  whip- 
ping their  skirts,  broad-hipped,  broad-cheeked 
creatures,  eyes  shadowed  with  an  indefatig- 
able sadness.  I  watch  them  for  hours  and 
M.  Novinsky  often  joins  me.  Yesterday  the 
three  of  us  stood  at  the  window  looking  at  two 
huge  artichokes  of  shawls  supported  by  felt 
boots,  coquetting  with  the  izvostchiks  after 
the  manner  of  young  bears.  Between  these 
uncouth  figures  and  M.  Novinsky  I  feel  a 
certain  something  in  common,  but  the  General 
is  different. 

"Bah!"  he  scowled.  "The  most  wrinkled 
old  crone  in  China  tosses  off  a  street  scene  with 
more  relish  than  these  peasants.  An  Italian, 
a  Burmese,  a  Chinese — yes,  but  these  Rus- 
sians have  no  zest  for  life." 

"Plain,  endless  winter,  gray  sky,  does  not 
make  for  esprit"  commented  M.  Novinsky, 
calmly,  without  lifting  his  eyes  to  the  General. 
"No  mountains,  no  sea;  the  rivers  are  the 
only  romance  they  have  except  such  as  they 
find  in  their  own  souls.  To  understand  the 
Russian  is  to  remember  that  the  Russian 

37 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

word  for  beauty  is  red.  Read  the  Russian 
geographically;  and  that  means  to  see  him 
against  the  background  of  an  endless  gray 
monotony.  My  conviction  is  that  he  drinks 
and  kills  only  because  he  is  bored." 

"But  these  are  the  brawny  figures  that  pour 
tides  of  men  toward  Europe,"  I  ventured, 
looking  up  at  the  autocratic  face  of  the 
General. 

"Da  Slavu  Bogu!  They  breed  as  fecundly 
as  Mother  Earth  herself.  Their  raison  d'etre. 
And  now  that  the  men  are  gone,  they  must 
bring  forth  bread  as  they  have  brought  forth 


men." 


"Men  and  bread — bread  and  men."  The 
words  wearied  my  imagination.  I  felt  myself 
sinking  slowly  to  the  earth  under  some  mon- 
strous burden. 

"Don't  trouble  yourself,  Mademoiselle.  It's 
their  lot.  A  muzhik  who  needs  a  baba  for 
harvest,  I  assure  you,  loses  little  time  in 
courting.  They  are  used  to  it."  And  the 
General  turned  away  from  the  window. 

I  regard  the  General  and  M.  Novinsky  and 
then  I  look  at  these  babas  outside  in  the  snow. 
Again  I  am  struck  with  incredulity.  Are  they 
gf  the  sajne  race?  M.  Novinsky  is  finely  rno4- 


BLOTTING   THE   ESCUTCHEON 

eled;  face  narrow,  ey$s  with  more  than  a 
tinge  of  Eastern  inscrutability,  skin  fine  in 
texture,  ringers  nervously  intelligent.  In  the 
canine  world  he  would  be  a  borzoi.  The 
cigarette-case  he  has  just  laid  down  is  shagreen 
because  he  likes  the  feel,  and  stamped  with  a 
tiny  monogram  in  gold.  A  piece  of  peach- 
blow  or  sang  de  bceuf  he  handles  as  if  he  were 
worshiping.  He  has  a  passion  for  French 
novels.  The  story  he  told  me  yesterday  of  a 
Japanese  girl  near  whom  he  stood  for  morning 
ablutions  at  an  inn  in  Tokio  was  related  with 
the  subtlety  of  a  Frenchman  and  the  naivete 
of  an  Italian,  and  probably  no  one  but  a  Rus- 
sian could  have  given  it  point  in  so  many 
different  languages.  The  flower  of  an  ex- 
tremely sophisticated  civilization,  superfici- 
ally everything  that  the  peasant  is  not,  he  is. 
Russia  with  all  her  sullen  monotonies  offers 
the  most  brutal  of  contrasts.  And  yet,  be- 
tween M.  Novinsky  and  the  muzhiks  I  feel  an 
indefinable  something  in  common;  perhaps 
only  a  simplicity. 

The  General  is  more  baffling.  Dinner  we 
always  have  at  night  in  his  compartment. 
There  are  cavaire  and  soup,  with  fish  and  olives 
and  Siberian  game.  Ivan  Caspitch  places 

39 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

two  bundles  on  the  table,  between  which  the 
decorations  of  the  General's  uniform  gleam 
like  the  jewels  of  the  Mother  of  God.  The 
effect  is  somber  but  rich  and  Russian.  I  like 
to  watch  the  shadows  play  across  the  Gener- 
al's face,  his  eyes  darkening,  his  gaunt  body 
relaxed  against  the  cushions,  his  fingers  dex- 
terously rolling  a  cigarette,  speaking  English 
rapidly,  brilliantly  and  with  more  distinction 
than  an  Englishman.  One  forgets  the  indif- 
ference of  the  steppe,  the  darkness  closing 
down  like  a  cowl.  He  is  interested  in  Amer- 
ican women — he  says  they  sip  the  honey  from 
the  flowers  of  the  world — a  man  for  whom,  I 
am  certain,  life  has  run  swift  and  deep. 
Twice  when  I  have  discussed  a  man,  he  has 
dismissed  him  with  a  shrug  and  the  final 
damnation,  "He  knows  nothing  of  life." 
Always  he  seems  quaffing  greedily  at  life 
before  some  cold  finality  overwhelms  him.  I 
wonder  sometimes  if  he  fears  to  meet  his 
death.  Yesterday,  when  he  had  been  mood- 
ily watching  the  steppe,  he  turned  away. 
"The  dark  door,"  he  said,  and  to-day  again 
almost  with  superstition.  What  life  means 
for  him  I  do  not  know ;  not  what  it  means  to 
me  nor,  perhaps,  to  M.  Novinsky,  smoking 

40 


BLOTTING   THE    ESCUTCHEON 

quietly  in  the  corner,  and  watching  him  with 
enigmatic  eyes. 

M.  Novinsky,  I  am  beginning  to  suspect, 
holds  the  General  in  distrust.  He  is  of  too 
excellent  technique  to  disclose  it,  and  perhaps 
it  would  never  have  penetrated  my  conscious- 
ness had  it  not  been  for  a  sudden  flaring-up 
to-day,  after  a  discussion  with  the  General. 

"  Half-breed !"  M.  Novinsky  exclaimed,  con- 
temptuously, picking  up  a  volume  of  Ferrier, 
when  the  General  had  retired  to  smoke. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  General  does  con- 
fess to  Teutonic  blood;  he  has  told  me  him- 
self, with  a  certain  arrogant  pride,  that  he 
came  from  Riga.  Perhaps  this  explains  much 
that  has  been  puzzling  me:  a  ruthless  indif- 
ference to  the  peasants,  and  an  autocracy,  cer- 
tainly not  of  the  Russians  Russian.  The 
strands  of  the  Russian  loom  are  beginning  to 
separate.  Is  the  General  that  type  of  Ger- 
man bureaucrat  who  has  denied  freedom  to 
the  most  innately  democratic  people  in  the 
world? 

"And  are  these  Baltic-Germans  to  officer  the 
war?"  I  murmur,  half  to  myself,  looking  at 
M.  Novinsky,  who  continues  to  gaze  at  the 
far  gray  horizon. 

41 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

M.  Novinsky  is  recovering  from  a  long  ill- 
ness and  is  disqualified  for  military  service, 
but  I  hazard  that  something  other  than  a 
fling  at  the  capital  hurries  this  slim,  keen 
Slavophil  toward  Europe. 


IV 

CHRISTMAS  ON  THE   STEPPE 

CHRISTMAS  in  Siberia!  That  is,  of 
course,  for  a  vagabond  American.  Rus- 
sian Christmas  lies  thirteen  days  ahead.  It 
is  a  Christmas  which,  I  dare  say,  when  I  am 
old  I  shall  count  an  illusion.  Even  now  it 
seems  a  flying  chimera.  At  least  we  are  on 
what  one  without  a  yellow  -  journalist  con- 
science might  term  a  dash.  The  demand  for 
the  General  at  the  front  has  cleared  the 
tangle,  and  all  the  trains  of  horses  and  am- 
munition, sections  of  gray-coated  Cossacks 
and  of  Austrian  prisoners  bound  for  the 
Siberian  salt-mines,  have  been  drawn  up  on 
sidings,  while  our  little  special  rushes  past 
like  Thompson's  Hound  of  Heaven.  All  day 
yesterday  the  track  lay  along  Lake  Baikal, 
that  fragment  of  sea  imprisoned  here  by  some 
strange  chance  in  centuries  past,  tossing 
yesterday  in  a  black  rage.  Even  the  General, 

43 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

who  pores  all  day  over  maps,  laid  down  his 
papers,  and  the  strange  three  of  us — with 
Ivan  Caspitch  and  Katya  at  the  other  win- 
dow— stood  watching  the  weird  scene.  M. 
Novinsky,  sensitive  to  all  beauty,  I  could  feel 
ravaged  by  its  splendor. 

"It  is  a  Tarn  o'Shanter  race,"  I  ventured. 

"For  which  Beardsley  drew  the  setting." 
M.  Novinsky  completed  the  fancy. 

The  wind  crumpling  and  crashing  down 
from  the  Arctic  was  so  high  that  one  could 
scarcely  stand  between  the  cars,  and  the  lake 
roared  like  a  beast.  But  beyond  the  black 
waters  the  sun  touched  the  mountains  with 
a  dazzling  whiteness. 

"A  new  vision  vouchsafed  by  the  prophets,  a 
city  celestial  let  down  into  the  world!"  M. 
Novinsky  murmured,  watching  the  glory  with 
mystic  eyes. 

As  night  fell  the  mystery  of  the  lake  deep- 
ened. Lighted  headlands  jutted  out  into  the 
waters  and  the  whole  took  on  a  new  profun- 
dity, surcharged  with  the  savagery  of  night 
and  the  North.  I  fell  asleep  at  the  window, 
still  watching  while  darkness  covered  the  face 
of  the  waters.  When  I  awoke  it  was  two 
o'clock,  Christmas  morning  in  the  West. 

44 


CHRISTMAS  ON  THE  STEPPE 

The  General  stood  in  my  doorway  looking,  to 
my  sleepy  gaze,  like  a  fur-clad  angel ;  outside 
lights  were  foregathering. 

"Irkutsk,  Mademoiselle.  The  express 
waits!" 

I  shall  always  treasure  that  sally.  It  was 
the  General's  one  bit  of  humor. 

The  thrilling  delicacy  of  that  early  morning 
in  the  North!  I  looked  up  at  my  tall  Rus- 
sians. M.  Novinsky  was  breathing  the  air 
of  home;  his  long  gray-blue  eyes  shone  with 
a  nervous  excitement.  The  General  showed 
less  emotion.  Through  a  silvery  snow  tissue 
the  lights  of  the  big  white  station  gleamed 
with  the  festive  air  of  an  enchanted  castle. 
With  its  silvery  blues  and  grays,  its  ethereal 
other- worldliness,  it  might  have  been  a  scene 
from  Maeterlinck,  incredibly  lovely. 

The  General  and  M.  Novinsky  saw  to  a 
ticket  and  a  place  in  the  post-train  toward 
Harbin  for  Katya,  a  little  dazed  but  mainly 
stolid,  whose  going  wrung  a  tear  from  a  Cos- 
sack's eye,  and  then  we  wandered  inside  the 
station.  M.  Novinsky  and  I  sat  down  under 
the  dusty  artificial  palms  to  drink  black  cof- 
fee from  tall  glasses,  while  the  General  found 
acquaintance  among  the  sworded  and  booted 

45 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

officers  with  whose  greens,  blues  and  crimsons 
the  crowd  was  irradiated.  A  strange  Christ- 
mas! 

After  the  wintry  solitudes  of  the  plain  the 
interior  of  the  station  seemed  almost  gay, 
but  it  was  a  delusive  gaiety,  which  be- 
tokened the  infection  of  humanity.  Plainly 
we  had  left  the  steppe.  For  some  reason,  dif- 
ficult to  define,  it  was  less  Siberian  and  more 
Russian.  The  General  and  M.  Novinsky,  too, 
seemed  more  Russian  than  in  Peking,  as  if  in 
mingling  with  their  own  race  they  had  ac- 
quired a  new  access  of  nationality.  On  the 
whole,  the  officers  were  well-set-up  looking 
men  and  somehow  one  felt  one's  self  nearing  a 
mighty  vortex.  The  hosts  were  gathering; 
strange  ethnological  types  such  as  I  had  never 
seen  before;  foreshortened  faces  with  copper 
skins;  tall  hawk-nosed  men,  long-skirted  and 
green-girdled;  sleeping  muzhik  faces  under 
close  caps — all  sucked  and  dragged  by  cosmic 
forces  there  beyond  their  world,  neither  of 
their  willing  nor  their  ken.  It  is  interesting 
to  watch  one's  imagination  struggle  upward. 
I  can  almost  put  my  finger  on  the  moment 
when  the  realization  of  Great  Russia  moved 
into  a  large  upper  chamber  of  my  imagination. 

46 


CHRISTMAS   ON  THE   STEPPE 

It  was  there  in  the  station  at  Irkutsk,  and  it 
came  in  one  clear  moment  like  a  vision,  as  if 
I  had  really  sat  on  the  rim  of  the  sun  with 
Uriel  from^the  beginning  of  the  world.  I  saw 
a  white  level  sweeping  from  the  Pacific  to  the 
Urals  and  rushing  then  from  the  Urals  to 
Western  Europe,  spreading  north  to  the  Arctic 
Circle  and  melting  to  the  south  under  the 
blue  skies  of  Crimea — cool  crystal  spaces 
greater  than  the  surfaces  of  the  moon  which 
watched  over  our  voyagings.  Across  the  wan 
surfaces  drifted  saffron  horsemen  out  of  the 
East,  yellow  clouds  crossing  the  face  of  the 
earth — a  tide  that  ebbed  and  flowed,  advanced 
and  retreated — receded  to  the  East  and  there 
for  centuries  rested.  And  now  again  the 
cycle  begins — again  a  yellow  tide  flows  toward 
Europe ;  variegated  races,  aliens  among  them- 
selves, eying  one  another  strangely,  forsaking 
their  tents,  their  izbas,  the  dreams  of  their 
youth,  the  work  of  their  hands,  now — ten 
centuries  later — to  gather  under  one  stand- 
ard, to  fight  under  one  command — of  the 
Great  White  Czar.  "Not  a  nation,  but  a 
world."  I  dimly  comprehended.  I  went  to 
sleep  dreaming  of  chill  surfaces  of  the  moon 
Across  which  rayed  shadowy  variegated  figures, 

4? 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

streaming  in  a  mighty  flood  toward  a  giant 
mill-race — somewhere — there — beyond. 

A  grotesque  Christmas!  I  awoke  in  the 
express,  the  sun  shining  and  the  whole  land- 
scape looking  like  a  monster  Christmas  card, 
silvered  and  frosted  and  ready  to  mail. 
There  through  the  world,  in  London  and  New 
York,  Christmas  chimes  were  ringing.  Pack- 
ages were  being  untied  and  gay  little  notes 
opened,  and  children  were  pulling  toys  out  of 
their  stockings.  I  looked  out  at  the  monotony 
of  the  steppe,  at  a  row  of  birches  fluttering 
and  dancing  in  the  breeze. 

But  there  was  one  bit  of  holiday.  A  plum- 
pudding  had  been  thrust  into  the  car  by  a 
kind  English  friend  the  last  moment  in 
Peking.  From  Chinese  train  to  Japanese, 
from  the  Japanese  train  to  the  post — bad  'cess 
to  it — from  the  post  to  the  special,  from  the 
special  to  the  express,  we  attended  that  pud- 
ding— his"  Excellency  the  General,  M.  Novin- 
sky  and  I.  The  Russians  had  never  tasted 
English  plum-pudding  and  I  was  eager  that 
this  should  be  irresistible.  My  first  mission 
this  morning  was  to  consult  the  chef.  "Like 
so  many  other  things  Russian,"  the  General 

48 


CHRISTMAS    ON   THE    STEPPE 

assured  me,  "he  will  not  be  Russian  at  all,  but 
French."  And  French  he  was,  smilingly, 
piquantly  French,  as  incongruous  as  a  Paris 
hat  in  the  Siberian  steppe.  With  a  flashing 
smile,  which  had  lost  none  of  its  French 
savoire  faire  in  the  wilderness,  he  promised  me 
that  his  sauce  would  make  other  puddings 
taste  like  brown  paper.  It  did.  I  knew  that 
it  was  a  triumph  the  minute  I  saw  the  Gen- 
eral's face.  Under  the  new  law  there  was  no 
champagne,  but  the  Russians  ate  to  Christ- 
mas liberally. 

"To  America!"  The  General  commanded 
the  table  like  a  swarthy  ikon. 

"To  Russia!"  offered  M.  Novinsky,  cos- 
mopolitan, elegant. 

"To  the  Entente!"  I  proposed,  clutching  at 
the  side  of  the  rocking  train. 

"To  an  English  plum-pudding  made  by  a 
Chinese  cook,  sauced  by  a  French  chef, 
served  by  a  Tartar  on  a  rocking  trans-Siberian 
train,"  M.  Novinsky  rose  again  to  the  delight 
of  all  the  enormously  dining  guests,  smiling 
at  us  across  the  red  table-cloths  in  the  murky 
little  car,  ' '  and  British  to  the  end !"  What  an 
infinitesimal  point  of  gaiety  we  were  in  that 
somber  brooding! 

49 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

The  Russian  express  is  not  so  luxuriously 
appointed  as  the  Wagon  Lits,  but  I  should  not 
hesitate  to  commend  it  to  a  traveler.  In  fact, 
to  me  it  is  depressingly  comfortable — but  my 
standards  are  a  vagabond's.  No  more  scurry- 
ing off  the  train;  no  more  soup  from  which 
one  may  fish  a  whole  course  dinner,  sans  sweets 
and  cigarettes,  eaten  with  red-bearded  giants 
who  might  pray  to  their  own  images  for  those 
of  the  saints;  no  more  candle-lighted  dinners 
a  trois,  with  the  darkness  tipped  over  one 
like  a  bowl.  No  more  ministrations  of  Ivan 
Caspitch.  The  salt  would  have  lost  its  savor 
indeed  did  not  a  new  interest  appear  over  the 
horizon,  numerous  troop-trains  carrying  Aus- 
trian and  German  prisoners. 

Our  train  halts  frequently  and  we  cross  the 
tracks  to  talk  to  these  "tattered  creatures 
who  were  once  men."  The  rank  and  file  of 
them  are  different  from  our  friends,  the  Cos- 
sacks; a  trifle  more  sophisticated,  a  little  less 
aloof,  more  quickly  given  to  an  intimate — 
a  too  intimate — smile  than  the  Cossacks. 
Their  clothing  is  thin  for  Siberian  winds.  I 
saw  one  man  yesterday  leaning  out  of  a  box- 
car window  with  only  a  vest  and  no  shirt,  but 
he  looked  so  cheerful  that  I  wondered  if  it 

so 


CHRISTMAS   ON   THE   STEPPE 

were  from  choice  and  not  compulsion.  They 
swarm  to  the  windows  and  doors  of  the  box- 
cars where  they  are  packed  like  traditional 
herrings,  with  as  keen  interest  in  what  may 
be  forthcoming  from  our  side  as  we  have  in 
theirs.  They  even  board  our  train  and  strag- 
gle through  the  cars — unkempt  gray  men  with 
gold-exploring  eyes,  begging  always  the  same 
thing,  always  and  without  variation,  ciga- 
rettes. Papirossi  will  be  as  thoroughly  em- 
bedded in  the  vocabulary  of  the  German  as 
coffee  was  rooted  in  the  palate  of  the  Viennese 
after  the  Napoleonic  wars.  It  is  only  the 
men  who  thus  fraternize.  The  officers  are  a 
handsome,  scowling  lot,  who  seem  always  to 
look  beyond,  into  the  heart  of  the  Tyrol. 

"Where  were  they  taken?"  I  asked  the 
General  yesterday,  of  an  uncouth  band  who 
were  fighting  to  get  within  the  range  of  my 
camera. 

"I  never  ask,"  the  General  answered,  with 
pointed  brevity.  I  had  blundered  in  the  sol- 
diers' world,  indelicately. 

"There  are  no  guides  in  evidence.  They 
wander  about  at  will?" 

"The  steppe  itself  is  a  guide  that  never 
sleeps,"  stated  the  General.  And  I  knew 
5  51 


MISS   AMER1KANKA 

that  he  spoke  grimly  true.  Any  invasion  of 
that  white  sanctity  spells  swift  and  inexorable 
death. 

Sometimes  the  wind  moans  across  the 
waste  until  I  cannot  sleep,  but  high  above  the 
wind  and  the  rush  of  the  train  come  the 
fragments  of  a  song — in  a  flash  our  express  has 
passed  and  gone — but  the  memory  lingers. 
Whatever  else  slips  through  memory's  net, 
never  will  it  be  those  snatches  of  song  heard 
on  the  steppe  in  the  watches  of  the  night — 
the  melody  of  men  crossing  the  void  to  keep 
their  tryst  with  death. 


CHILDREN   OF  THE  FOREST 

EVEN  a  fine  style  may  grow  monotonous, 
and  the  steppe  is  akin  to  le  grand  style. 
For  days,  more  than  ten  now,  my  eyes  have 
implored  the  plain  for  an  elevation,  even  the 
slightest  aspiring  point  in  the  level,  but  the 
only  answer  has  been — more  level.  This 
morning  Ivan  Caspitch  awoke  me  at  five  to  be- 
hold the  Urals,  the  caesura  between  Europe  and 
Asia.  If  seas  flow  between  the  Wests,  what 
a  mighty  break  should  yawn  here  between  the 
West  and  the  East!  Together  we  stood  at 
the  window,  scanning  the  hollow  gray  light, 
Ivan  Caspitch  stolid  and  bulky  in  the  half- 
light  and  I  shivering  in  my  shuba,  straining 
my  eyes  for  the  pause  between  two  con- 
tinents. 

"Where  are  they,  Ivan?"  I  demanded.  "I 
cannot  see  them."  My  acquaintance  with 
the  Urals  had  been  mainly  with  lapis  lazuli 

53 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

in  the  jewelers'  windows,  but  I  should  have 
been  content  with  the  earthiest  earth  had  it 
been  mountains.  But  for  all  my  vigilance, 
there  was  only  a  placid  flowing. 

"There,  barishnya"  Ivan  Caspitch  pointed 
to  a  darker  scattering  of  forest  swelling  slight- 
ly to  the  left  and  right.  "There,  we  are 
crossing  them  now.  Bozhe  moil  bolshoi 
vyeter!" 

"Bolshoi  vyeter!"  Indeed  it  was,  a  great 
wind.  To  that  I  agreed.  It  shrieked  like 
fiends  from  the  Deserts  of  Nowhere,  though 
I  had  not  known  how  to  say  it  in  Russian. 
But  mountains !  No  mountains,  only  a  barely 
perceptible  flaring  up  ancj.  then  quickly  dying 
down  into  lethargy.  How  like  life  is  the 
steppe,  without  plan,  prologue,  chapters,  or 
theme ! 

"The  Urals,"  Ivan  Caspitch  affirmed, 
briefly. 

I  looked  at  Ivan  Caspitch  as  he  stood  in 
the  early  morning  darkness,  broadly  blocked, 
neutral  in  color,  without  a  single  incisive 
feature;  the  product  and  the  symbol  of  that 
somber,  implacable,  infinite  heath. 

"Ivan,"  I  cried,  "it  is  terrible!  Do  you 
never  fear  and  hate  it — the  steppe?" 

54 


CHILDREN  OF  THE    FOREST 

"  Nu,  barishnya,  we  are  used  to  it."  Ivan 
Caspitch  shrugged  his  shoulders  stolidly. 

The  background  is  always  the  same,  but 
against  its  white  monotone  is  imprinted  a 
various  design.  The  last  few  days  the  pat- 
tern has  changed  noticeably  from  the  new  of 
Siberia  to  the  old  of  Russia.  We  have  left  the 
pencil  sketches  of  the  birches  and  now  we  are 
among  the  somber  oils  of  the  deep  forest. 
There  are  more  villages  now  and  more  fre- 
quently the  spires  and  domes  of  Russian 
churches  seen  dimly  through  the  flying  snow. 
More  often  little  log  huts,  izbas,  edge  their 
way  out  of  the  forest  and  blink  at  the  world 
like  curious  owls;  and  the  peasant  himself 
comes  out  also  to  blink  at  the  world  or  moves 
along  the  clearing  —  but  another  fruit  of 
the  forest,  like  mushrooms  and  the  lichens 
among  which  he  grows.  Assuredly  this  is 
different.  Siberia  I  felt  young,  vigorous,  the 
pioneer.  But  Russia  I  feel  old  and  weary, 
the  melancholy  and  mellow.  Russia,  the 
mother. 

What  people  emerge  so  simply  from  the 
black  earth  and  ascend  so  simply  to  God? 
Few  comprehend  these  children  of  the  forest 
as  does  Stephen  Graham.  Read  the  chapter 

55 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

on  the  "Age  of  Wood"  in  his   Undiscovered 
Russia. 

The  muzhik's  cradle  is  a  pine  hole,  scooped  out  like 
an  ancient  boat.  It  hangs  with  hempen  ropes  from  a 
springy  sapling  in  his  mother's  cottage.  His  coffin  is 
but  a  larger  cradle,  a  larger,  longer  pine  scooped  out, 
with  an  ax-hewn  plank  to  cover  it,  and  wooden  pegs 
to  nail  it  down ;  and  between  the  cradle  and  the  coffin  he 
lives,  surrounded  by  wood.  A  robust  baby,  he  clambers 
out  of  his  cradle  onto  a  pine  floor,  also  of  grand  ax- 
hewn  planks,  too  solid  to  wear  into  holes  like  other 
men's  poor  floors.  He  crawls  about  until  he  learns 
to  run  from  one  hand-carved  chair  to  another,  and  at 
last  takes  his  seat  at  the  table  his  father  made  a  month 
before  the  wedding.  He  crosses  himself  to  the  sacred 
symbols  made  on  birch  bark.  He  eats  all  his  meals 
with  a  wooden  spoon;  forks  and  knives  are  almost 
unknown  in  the  forest.  He  eats  off  wooden  plates  or 
out  of  wooden  Russian  basins.  Even  the  salt-cellar 
is  from  the  forest  and  was  plaited  by  his  sister  from  reeds 
last  year.  He  gets  big  enough  to  go  out  to  the  forest 
with  his  brothers  and  sisters,  and  they  take  birch- 
bark  baskets  and  gather  mushrooms  or  yagodi — all 
forest  fruits  are  called  yagodi,  berries.  Vania  they 
call  him — little  Vania — Vaska  when  he  looks  like  a 
dirty  little  urchin.  See  him  every  day  in  muddy  little 
bare  legs,  hunting  in  the  forest  for  berries  or  chasing  the 
cows  who  have  gone  astray  there.  He  learns  to  walk 
nimbly  on  the  uneven,  moss-covered  ground,  and  can 
even  run  among  the  broken  branches  and  thorns  and 
leap  from  one  dead  tree  to  another  or  swarm  up  the 
straight  gray-green  trunks.  He  learns  to  trap  rabbits 

56 


CHILDREN   OF   THE    FOREST 

and  to  catch  young  woodcocks,  knows  the  wolf  paw, 
the  fox  paw,  the  bear  paw,  in  the  soft  soil.  The 
priest  teaches  him  a  little  in  the  school  about  God  and 
the  Czar  and  observances  of  the  Church,  and  such 
education  suffices  for  Varna.  He  is  becoming  a  woods- 
man. The  forest  is  the  best  school,  but  he  never  re- 
members how  it  was  he  learned  there.  He  came  to 
know  that  when  the  sun  set  it  was  evening,  and  when  it 
rose  it  was  morning.  He  learned  that  the  foliage  of  a 
tree  takes  shape  according  to  the  sunshine  it  gets  and 
the  time  of  day  the  sunshine  reaches  it,  and  when  he 
is  in  the  dark  forest  he  knows  by  the  shape  of  a  trunk 
the  way  out.  Every  tree  is  a  compass  in  itself.  But 
so  deep  and  subconscious  is  his  knowledge  that  he  does 
not  look  at  the  tree  at  all.  He  does  not  know  how  he 
knows.  Ask  him  the  way  out  of  a  wood  and  he  will 
point  in  this  direction  or  that,  as  the  case  may  be. 
But  he  will  not  be  able  to  tell  you  how  he  knew. 

As  I  said,  the  forests  are  behind  his  eyes  as  well  as  in 
front  of  them.  The  forests  look  into  the  simple  soul, 
placid  as  a  lake,  and  draw  their  own  pictures  there. 

The  time  comes  for  Vania  to  marry,  and  he  had 
better  build  himself  an  izba.  It  is  of  pine,  and  three 
friends  help  him  to  build  it,  while  his  father  stands  by 
and  directs.  They  have  no  planes  and  chisels,  saws, 
squares,  joiner's  tables,  and  the  like.  All  is  wrought 
by  ax  and  every  joint  is  ax-cut  and  every  smooth 
surface  is  ax-hewn.  The  walls  of  the  house  and  of  the 
great  stove  are  paneled.  Vania  hews  out  a  sleeping- 
shelf  for  himself  and  his  wife  above  the  oven.  He 
makes  unbreakable  chairs  to  sit  on  and  make  merry, 
and  a  table,  and  finally,  without  other  tool  than  his  ax, 
builds  a  cart  to  take  himself  and  his  bride  from  the 

57 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

church,  and  he  builds  the  shafts  and  the  Russian  collar 
arch  to  which  the  horse  is  yoked — all  of  wood;  even 
the  wheels  are  not  faced  with  iron,  and  the  harness  is 
made  of  wood  and  leather. 

One  night  great-grandfather  Vania — that  is,  the 
father  of  Vania's  father — comes  into  the  new  house 
and  prays  to  God.  Then  he  tells  them  that  his  time 
is  passing.  He  is  an  old  man.  To-morrow  he  will 
take  a  new  log  and  build  a  coffin  for  himself,  and  he 
will  cut  a  wooden  cross  to  put  over  his  grave.  Grand- 
father Vania  makes  his  coffin  and  puts  it  away  until 
it  may  be  necessary.  Meanwhile  it  may  hold  rye  meal, 
or,  if  there  is  little  space  in  the  old  home,  he  can  make 
a  bed  in  it  and  sleep  in  it  o'  nights.  The  time  will  come 
when  he  will  rest  there  all  night  and  not  rise  the  next 
morning.  Old  Grandfather  Vania  will  be  dead. 
Vania's  father  and  Vania  and  other  villagers  will  carry 
the  coffin  out  to  the  grave,  and  the  old  man's  body 
will  be  committed  to  the  ancient  pine  mold. 

Then  Vania's  father,  himself  a  grandfather,  follows 
in  the  steps  of  man  down  to  the  grave,  and  Vania 
ripens  to  his  prime  and  little  Vania  grows  up  and 
marries.  All  among  the  standing  trees.  Little  Vania 
has  a  child  and  the  whole  of  human  life  turns  round  a 
quarter-circle.  So  on,  da  capo. 

There  were  ten  of  us  when  the  express  left 
Irkutsk:  a  Siberian  mine-owner  and  his  wife, 
so  rich  that  one  talked  about  them  in  whispers; 
a  bearded  engineer  from  the  Amur;  the 
Spanish-eyed,  little  Russian  wife  of  an  officer; 
a  baby  who  wailed  with  true  Russian  pessi- 

58 


CHILDREN   OF   THE    FOREST 

mism;  an  old  nyanya,  voluminously  clothed  in 
a  white  apron  and  coif,  and  equally  enveloped 
in  folk-lore  and  superstition;  and  a  cafe 
chantant  singer  from  Vladivostok,  black-eyed, 
crisply  curled,  and  swathed  in  velvet  and 
furs  after  the  manner  of  the  divine  Sarah. 
But  Russia  has  been  populating  her  plains 
longer  than  Siberia,  and  we  are  picking  up 
travelers.  At  Cheliabinsk  there  were  several 
passengers  for  the  second-class  and  a  Polish 
woman  appeared  in  the  first-class,  with  whom 
I  must  share  my  luxurious  compartment. 
And  to-day  Gogol's  Taras  Bulba  himself 
came  aboard! 

Most  of  the  jollity  of  the  car  is  shut  up 
in  the  compartment  of  the  Siberian  mine- 
owner — a  thick-bodied,  red-lipped  man  whom 
I  do  not  like — and  his  wife,  with  both  of  whom 
the  General  has  made  friends.  M.  Novinsky 
knits  his  eyebrows  and  evidently  he  thinks 
his  own  thoughts.  Nevertheless,  we  both 
sometimes  join  the  group.  It  is  difficult  to 
resist  Madame  at  tea-time,  when  the  samovar 
is  set.  And  perhaps  now  I  have  peeped 
through  another  window  into  the  General's 
soul.  Cherchez  la  femme,  always,  with  a 
Russian.  Madame  is  a  startling,  fascinating 

59 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

woman — even  among  Russians,  where  one 
finds  color  and  fire.  She  is  a  type  of  the 
south,  from  the  vineyards  and  sunny  hills  of 
Little  Russia.  Wide  plains  and  the  gray 
skies  could  never  have  bred  her — so  warm 
and  lazy  and  luxuriant,  hair  so  auburn,  eyes 
a  sapphire  blue  that  bring  constantly  to  mind 
Crimean  seascapes,  and  her  laugh  deep- 
throated  and  rich. 

If  I  were  a  man  I  should  pray  to  be  de- 
livered from  temptation — and  take  the  next 
train! 

Russian  women  are  a  bit  unconventional — 
shall  I  say? — in  their  dress.  Both  Madame 
and  the  cafe  chantant  singer  wear  dressing- 
gowns  all  day  long.  Both  dine  in  their  com- 
partments, served  by  a  battalion  of  waiters 
and  small  boys,  carrying  all  the  dishes  of  a 
course  dinner  through  three  cars.  Madame's 
robe  is  a  zebra  stripe  such  as  Bakst  would 
hang  on  an  Egyptian  dancer,  though  Ma- 
dame's  figure  is  not  that  of  an  Egyptian;  it  is 
in  this  robe  that  she  dispenses  a  lavish  tea 
every  afternoon.  Heaven  and  the  chef  only 
know  where  the  dainties  come  from;  it  is 
tea  here  on  the  plain  as  if  we  were  in  the 
Plaza:  Russian  sweetmeats,  caviare,  nuts  and 

60 


CHILDREN   OF   THE    FOREST 

jam,  pate  de  fois  gras,  and  hothouse  grapes. 
One  is  expected  not  to  eat  and  drink,  but  to 
eat  and  drink  more.  If  the  Indian's  accusa- 
tion against  the  white  man,  that  he  plays  with 
his  mouth,  be  true,  the  Russian  is  the  arch- 
criminal. 

Every  one  speaks  Russian,  of  course,  hissing, 
purling  Russian,  Madame's  voice  dominating, 
as  does  her  personality.  I  cannot  under- 
stand always,  but  I  know  that  her  language, 
usually  cultured,  sometimes  slips  into  the 
voice  and  accent  of  a  country  baba.  Yester- 
day M.  Novinsky  glanced  at  me  quickly  to 
see  if  I  had  understood.  Madame  followed 
his  glance. 

"Monsieur  Galahad!"  she  smiled,  mock- 
ingly. 

If  one  crossed  her!  But  then  one  does  not! 
Man  is  her  game  and  him  she  hunts  with  a 
splendid  savagery  that  makes  an  English- 
woman seem  a  cold,  neuter  creature  beside  this 
Malva  of  Gorky. 

The  r61e  of  the  cafe  chantant  singer  is  deep 
seclusion.  The  Little  Russian  coquettes,  but 
even  her  Spanish  eyes  are  ineffectual,  pitted 
against  la  belle  sauvage.  It  is  the  bridge- 
builder  who  most  torments  me  with  the  re- 

61 


MISS  AMERIKANKA 

minder  of  scenes  his  eyes  have  traveled  over 
and  mine  can  never  behold.  But  I  can  never 
talk  with  him;  he  is  dedicated  to  la  belle 
sauvage.  Curiously  enough,  the  most  per- 
sistent face  is  the  servant  of  the  Siberian 
mine-owner  whom  I  see  walking  outside  in 
the  snow,  a  bearded  man  with  smoky-blue 
eyes  and  a  peculiarly  well  co-ordinated  car- 
riage. 

"Extraordinary  type  for  a  servant,"  I  re- 
marked to  the  General  yesterday,  watching 
the  fine  stride,  certainly  not  that  of  the  class 
to  which  he  belongs. 

"A  lumpish  fellow  when  one  speaks  to 
him,"  returned  the  General,  glaring  moodily 
out  of  the  window. 

Has  my  reading  of  human  nature  gone  so 
far  awry,  or  is  he  other  than  he  seems?  But 
why  should  the  General — ?  It  is  puzzling. 

Yesterday  I  stumbled  on  a  treasure.  It 
came  through  the  cracked  piano  which  makes 
the  journey  to  and  fro  across  Siberia  in  the 
dining-car.  I  was  improvising  accompani- 
ments to  negro  melodies,  which  M.  Novinsky 
had  found  charming,  one  gray  day  when  the 
darkness  closed  down  early.  Suddenly  I  felt 
another  presence  and  I  turned  around  to  see  a 

62 


CHILDREN   OF   THE    FOREST 

crooked,  stocky  figure  at  the  other  end  of  the 
car,  our  waiter,  his  eyes  blue,  his  face  shining 
with  joy. 

"Barina,  Tartar  ski  ya,"  he  said,  proudly, 
approaching  with  a  napkin  on  his  arm.  "I 
am  Tartar!  Yalublumysiky.  Yatantzyu.  I 
love  music.  I  dance."  He  threw  out  his 
arms  with  an  indescribable  gesture  of  for- 
gotten freedom. 

Shades  of  Genghis  Khan!  The  son  and 
heir  of  those  vigorous  hordes  that  overran 
the  world  from  Peking  to  Budapest,  and  from 
the  northern  steppe  to  India — this  mild-eyed 
creature,  with  shoulders  bent,  respectfully 
waiting,  a  napkin  on  his  arm!  But  if  there 
be  any  Tartar  blood  in  his  veins,  it  leaps  up 
with  the  music.  I  never  play  but  that  he 
tells  me  that  he  is  not  Russki,  but  Tartarski. 
Then  he  squares  his  shoulders,  clears  the 
table,  and  marshals  the  crumbs  off  with  the 
air  of  the  conqueror. 

This  is  the  sixteenth  day  since  we  went  out 
from  the  walls  and  towers  of  Peking.  Every 
one  agrees  that  the  journey  is  skuchno.  The 
train  rocks  abominably.  I  think  I  shall 
never  get  it  out  of  my  brain.  La  Polskaya 
lessened  the  space  in  my  compartment, 
63 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

but  also  my  ennui!  She  is  excellent  for  my 
Russian,  too,  since  she  speaks  no  English. 
And  for  me,  there  is  the  joy  of  pursuing  strange 
impressions  and  penetrating  farther  into 
strange  lands. 

La  Polskaya  is  not  a  beauty.  I  should  say 
that  nature  is  decidedly  in  arrears  with  her. 
In  fact,  she  represents  about  every  feature  of 
Slavic  plainness — dingy  skin,  broad  figure  and 
face,  and  apathetic  expression.  If  it  were 
not  for  her  eyes — but  she  has  kind,  redeeming 
Russian  eyes.  By  day  she  reads  Maeter- 
linck's Death  and  smokes.  By  night  she 
wears  gloves  and  continues  to  smoke.  And 
that  reminds  me  that,  in  spite  of  her  declara- 
tion that  nothing  matters  after  forty,  La 
Polskaya  has  a  weakness.  Yesterday  she 
gravely  produced  two  bottles  of  hair  tonic 
for  my  opinion.  She  had  spent  thirty  dol- 
lars in  Harbin,  she  told  me,  for  cosmetics  and 
lotions,  and  felt  grieved  that  I  could  not 
guarantee  results.  I  consoled  her  by  promis- 
ing her  my  cold-cream  from  America,  out  of 
gratitude  for  which  she  has  given  me  a  box 
of  French  powder.  Now  that  we  have  ex- 
changed feminine  civilities,  she  says  that  she 
was  born  and  bred  in  Warsaw,  though  I 

64 


CHILDREN   OF   THE    FOREST 

should  have  guessed  her  a  product  of  an  out- 
post of  civilization. 

My  disrobing  at  night  receives  an  embar- 
rassing concentration  of  interest,  but  her 
curiosity  is  so  naive  and  her  enjoyment  so 
sincere  that  I  cannot  show  annoyance.  Every 
detail  of  dress,  every  movement  of  my  toilet, 
is  honored  with  an  individual  attention  which 
in  no  whit  diminishes  with  repetition.  In 
fact,  La  Polskaya  quite  settles  down  to  the 
half-hour.  Only  once,  in  the  Rockies,  have 
I  come  upon  anything  like  this,  when  a  wee 
girl,  deserted  by  her  mother  in  a  cattle-camp, 
used  to  ride  her  pony  up  our  trail  with  the 
sunrise,  tuck  herself  away  in  a  corner  of  the 
cabin,  and  sit  silent  as  the  Sphinx  the  whole 
golden  day,  fathoms  deep  in  content  at  the 
mere  sight  of  a  woman.  We  laugh  a  good 
deal,  and  then  when  I  am  safely  tucked  away 
La  Polskaya  lights  a  cigarette,  with  a  sigh  of 
satisfaction,  declares  I  am  a  child — what  is 
in  her  mind  I  don't  know — puts  on  her 
gloves,  and  lights  another  cigarette.  The  last 
thing  at  night  I  am  aware  of  is  the  aroma  of 
her  cigarette,  and  it  is  my  alarm  in  the 
morning. 

Yesterday  I  dressed  and  went  into  the  din- 
65 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

ing-car  early,  and  there,  with  a  samovar  be- 
fore him,  I  found  Taras  Bulba.  He  must 
have  walked  in  from  the  steppe  in  seven- 
league  boots.  I  had  been  counting  some  of 
the  other  belted  men  we  saw  as  giants,  but 
he  dwarfed  them  all — a  stature  possible  to  be 
conceived,  it  would  seem,  only  at  some  earlier, 
lustier  period.  His  head  was  a  viking's  head 
and  crowned  with  heavy  hair,  which,  I  fancy, 
could  rumple  mightily  in  his  berserker  rages. 
As  I  entered  he  lifted  his  eyes  in  one  power- 
ful glance,  and  then  apparently  consigned  me 
to  oblivion  while  he  pursued  his  cakes  and  tea. 
It  was  distressingly  incongruous  to  see  him 
eat  cakes  and  tea ;  it  ought  to  have  been  meat 
torn  in  shreds  and  wassail  out  of  one  of  those 
up-curving  Russian  beakers.  I  wanted  to  call 
to  him  to  stand  up  and  swing  a  battle-ax  in- 
stead of  a  teaspoon,  but  it  was  only  a  teaspoon. 
When  he  rolled  his  way  into  the  car,  I  followed 
timidly  after.  Verily,  the  lion  and  the  mouse. 
I  know  no  nation  in  which  I  feel  a  giant's  power 
—physically  and  mentally — as  I  do  in  the 
Russian. 

There  is  a  stronger  feel  of  civilization  in  the 
air  now,  and  more  spurred  and  booted  officers 
are  joining  the  train.  To-morrow,  if  all  goes 

66 


CHILDREN    OF   THE    FOREST 

well,  the  train-master  announces  that  we 
shall  be  in  Petrograd;  all  the  home-going 
Russians  have  been  telegraphing  the  news  of 
their  imminent  arrival.  It  wraps  me  with  a 
realization  of  how  far  there  through  the  earth 
lies  America.  We  must  always  fly  thus,  it 
seems — perhaps  into  eternity — so  many  days 
have  we  fled  in  this  narrow  space  between 
earth  and  sky.  Perhaps  I  should  be  content 
if  it  were  so,  for  I  am  "used  to  it."  And  to- 
day I  feel  a  waif  standing  before  strange  gates. 
Here  are  friends.  There — who  can  say? 

Who  ever  enters  an  unknown  land  without 
a  sense  of  mystery  both  alluring  and  repelling? 
There  on  the  plain,  somewhere  in  the  dimness, 
lies  a  city  whose  existence  has  drawn  me 
seventeen  days  across  this  desert  whiteness — 
a  city  I  have  not  seen,  whose  streets  I  shall 
wander,  roofs  that  will  lodge  me,  sky  and 
snow  and  river  that  will  be  mine,  friends  and 
tides  of  influence — a  whole  new  world  of 
thought  and  feeling — perhaps  change — which 
in  my  natural  world  would  never  have  been. 
How  dare  we  boldly  evoke  these  unfamiliar 
worlds  for  ourselves  out  of  the  void,  forsaking 
our  own  paths  to  explore  their  mysterious 
ways! 

6  67 


PART  II 


VI 

I 

PETER'S  CAPITAL 

pETROGRAD!  No  land  "east  of  the 
1  sun  and  west  of  the  moon,"  as  I  had 
feared,  but  true !  That  is,  I  feel  a  city  there, 
though  my  eyes  are  still  baffled  by  the  curtain 
of  darkness  which  has  not  as  yet  lifted.  It  is 
morning,  eight  by  the  French  clock  on  the 
wall,  but  there  is  not  the  least  rift  in  the 
gloom,  only  a  sense  of  something  strange  out- 
lying there — a  trampling  of  boots,  men  pouring 
endlessly  through  the  streets,  and  a  rumbling 
of  guns.  They  are  shifting  troops.  I  hear 
a  hoarse  song  and  a  sharp  ura.  How  different, 
how  exceedingly  different  this  turbulence  from 
the  peace  of  the  East,  the  solitary  heart  of  the 
whiteness  from  which  we  have  come! 

We  were  nearly  the  whole  of  the  night  finding 
this  miracle  of  the  marshes.  Eleven  came, 
twelve,  one.  The  gaiety  that  had  sprung  up 
like  a  breeze  at  the  announcement  of  our  ar- 

71* 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

rival  died  down.  The  General  was  wrapped 
in  his  own  thoughts  and  M.  Novinsky  smoked, 
moodily  silent,  and  I  felt  a  strange  home- 
sickness, not  for  place,  but  for  spiritual  kin- 
dred. The  General  is  still  an  enigma,  but 
M.  Novinsky  has  become  a  charming  friend 
and  companion.  Yesterday  he  was  not;  to- 
day he  is;  to-morrow  he  will  cease  to  be. 
How  strange  it  all  is ! 

Clouds  were  crossing  the  face  of  the  moon, 
shaping,  reshaping,  merging  again.  The  wings 
of  the  Angel  of  Wrath  beat  past  us  as  we 
fled  down  the  Valleys  of  Time,  a,nd  only  a 
miracle,  it  seemed,  could  save  us  or  discover 
a  city,  other  than  mirage,  in  that  wild  in- 
candescence. But  at  three  the  sky  was  il- 
lumined in  the  west  as  if  by  a  huge  candle, 
as  the  train  flew  on  and  the  flare  brightened 
and  resolved  itself  into  myriads  of  points 
scattering  on  the  flame.  They  were  the  first 
lights  of  "Peter's  window  toward  Europe." 
The  trans-steppe  journey  was  finished.  At 
four  the  train  discharged  its  burden  of  Asio- 
European  travelers  into  the  echoing  Alex- 
ander III.  station.  It  seemed  the  porten- 
tous arrival  of  ocean  travelers  rather  than 
that  of  a  train.  Every  one  met  welcoming 

72 


PETER'S    CAPITAL 

faces,  which,  translated  into  Russian,  means 
arms. 

That  is,  every  one  met  welcome  except  one 
Americaine,  and  I  took  refuge  among  the  lug- 
gage and  stared  at  the  feather-bed  izvostchiks 
tied  about  the  middle  with  rainbow  sashes. 
The  General  was  engulfed  in  the  embrace  of 
two  tall  sons,  and  M.  Novinsky  had  vanished 
behind  an  astrakhan  coat  and  cap.  The 
sight  of  women  embracing  publicly  always  em- 
barrasses me  a  trifle,  and  as  for  men,  I  have 
considered  it  a  good  reason  for  not  being 
Continental.  Perhaps,  to  speak  the  truth, 
I  had  a  touch  of  three-in-the-morning  forlorn- 
ity.  But  the  absence  of  welcome  meant  no 
lack  of  warm  farewell.  La  Polskaya  wept 
Slavonically  on  my  shoulder.  "  Moya  milaya" 
she  wailed.  For  the  moment  she  was  parting 
with  a  friend  of  a  lifetime.  The  General 
clicked  his  heels  together  in  military  fashion 
and  waived  my  expressions  of  gratitude  with 
a  French  compliment. 

"Shall  we  meet  again,  Mademoiselle?  Ah, 
it  is  on  the  laps  of  the  gods.  Proshchaiete.  For- 
give my  sins.  I  leave  to-morrow  for  the 
front."  He  kissed  my  hand;  I  wished  it  had 
been  a  white,  perfumed  hand,  such  as  I  am 

73 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

certain  the  General  loves.  A  stiff  bow  to 
M.  Novinsky  and  then,  the  luggage  having 
been  collected  and  laded  on  the  leather- 
aproned  saints,  M.  Novinsky  and  his  brother 
led  the  way  through  the  echoing  station  to  the 
dark  bundles  of  fur  outside,  stowed  me  in  a 
swaying  shell,  and  we  clattered  off  down  the 
"main  street  of  All  the  Russias." 

How  Russian  M.  Novinsky  and  his  brother 
looked  in  their  Russian  setting,  pouring  forth 
a  stream  of  language  on  each  other;  this 
brother  who  comes  for  one  day's  leave  from 
the  Grand  Duke's  staff  and  returns  imme- 
diately to  the  front.  Most  of  the  talk  was 
French,  but  the  ejaculations  were  Russian. 
I  was  too  occupied  with  the  square  velvet  sofa- 
cushion  hat  of  the  izvostchik,  too  agitated  with 
the  street,  which  I  found  to  be  the  Nevsky, 
and  the  signs,  which  I  discovered  I  could 
read,  to  heed  the  conversation.  A  river  of 
street  here,  a  continent  of  square  there,  bulky 
geologic  strata  of  houses. 

"And  how  do  you  feel  it?"  M.  Novinsky's 
brother  asked,  with  a  smile  like  Dmitri  Nikola- 
ivitch's,  as  we  turned  into  the  shadow  of  an  im- 
mense cathedral  that  somehow  wafted  back  the 
memory  of  Egypt  and  the  temples  on  the  Nile. 

74 


PETER'S    CAPITAL 

"If  Japan  is  a  miniature,  Russia  was  done 
by  a  scene-painter,"  I  hazarded. 

11  Quite  true,"  he  laughed,  showing  his  white 
teeth.  "Nothing  is  small  in  Russia,  not  even 
the  virtues  or  the  vices." 

"And  least  of  all  the  cobblestones  and  the 
darkness,"  I  could  have  added.  "Or  the 
loneliness."  I  could  have  wept  on  M.  Novin- 
sky's  elegant  and  unaware  shoulder. 

M.  Novinsky  and  the  General  had  debated 
all  the  way  across  the  steppe  as  to  which  hotel 
to  commit  me  to,  and  the  decision  had  finally 
fallen  on  the  Angleterre  as  the  dullest  hotel  in 
Petrograd.  I  understood  when  I  saw  it. 
But  for  the  boy  with  peacock  feathers  in  his 
cap  and  a  red  rubashka,  the  general  assur- 
ance of  Russian  literature,  I  should  have  re- 
signed myself  to  an  English  Sunday  pall.  A 
whiskered  portier  has  assigned  me  to  this 
room,  and  here  I  have  been  deposited  by  a 
green-baize  apron  and  sit  in  the  glow  of  a 
porcelain  stove. 

Black-earth  Russia,  armed  Russia,  Holy 
Russia,  potential  Russia,  Russia  the  bread- 
giver  of  nations — all  lie  out  there  in  the  void. 
I  wish  the  bread-giver  would  vouchsafe  me  a 
morsel.  There  is  not  even  a  crumb,  and  I 

75 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

am  famished.  The  darkness  is  Stygian;  one 
might  loop  it  up,  but  it  would  always  tumble 
down,  immense  and  suffocating.  The  last 
familiar  letter  of  my  alphabet  has  vanished; 
everything  is  written  in  Cyrillic  letters  and 
punctuated  with  bearded  Scythians.  I  won- 
der could  even  the  angel  Uriel  say  why  I 
rocked  seventeen  days  across  Siberia ! 

The  curtain  has  lifted!  But  not  on  the 
"gayest  capital  in  Europe,"  not  while  there  is 
still  a  trail  to  Vienna  and  Budapest,  and  even 
blithe  old  London  in  May !  Oh,  for  the  purple 
skies  of  Egypt,  or  the  black  and  gold  of 
Nikko,  or  the  cherry  blossoms  of  Myanoshita, 
to  waft  away  the  memory  of  this  dun  city  on  a 
swamp!  Monotony  on  the  steppe  is  accept- 
able; it  comes  to  have  the  assurance  of  a 
great,  buoyant  friendship,  but  by  what  right 
has  a  capital  to  be  written  in  gray?  Twilight 
skies,  trailing  mists,  a  melancholy  folk  emerg- 
ing oddly  as  in  a  dream,  muffled  silence. 
Small  wonder  that  Peter  must  needs  flog  his 
subjects  into  leaving  belfried  Moscow  for  this! 

The  braziers  blaze  up,  giant  tiger-lilies 
against  the  snow.  The  blue  poison  mists, 
which  the  swamp  exhales  to  veil  the  banalities 
of  the  street,  offer  their  own  peculiar  welcome 

76 


PETER'S    CAPITAL 

to  foreigners,  and  I  am  the  victim  of  one  of 
the  newly-arrived-in-Russia  influenzas.  It 
leaves  me  of  a  mind  with  the  American 
attache  who  despatched  a  fierce  diatribe  to 
the  State  Department,  to  the  effect  that 
children  could  not  live  in  Petrograd — he  him- 
self being  fifty  and  a  bachelor — and  took  the 
first  boat  for  America.  For  myself,  I  could 
happily  yield  up  my  ghost  at  the  foot  of  an 
ikon  and  leave  my  aching  bones  under  a 
broad  Russian  cross  in  a  quiet  old  nunnery 
yard.  And  this  is  the  land  that  brings  the 
devotional  look  to  M.  Novinsky's  eyes,  eyes 
that  still  remember  sunny  Vevey,  Florence, 
and  the  Seine !  ' '  Something  poignant ' ' — yes, 
perhaps.  I  can  dimly  sense  it.  The  Slav 
to  his  East,  but  I  will  have  mine,  junk  sails  and 
pagodas. 

The  portier  and  the  peacock  boy  and  my 
waiter  are  kind,  and  I  am  not  the  object  of 
more  staring  than  a  woman  not  yet  decrepit 
may  expect  if  she  travels  alone  on  the  Con- 
tinent. I  have  always  given  the  palm  for  real 
annoyance  to  a  Frenchman,  but  yesterday  I 
was  ready  to  yield  it  to  the  Slav.  But  for 
M.  Novinsky,  I  should  believe  half  of  what  I 
read  of  these  veneered  Tartars.  It  was  in  the 

77 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

reading-room  that  the  staring  began,  quiet 
and  unobtrusive.  I  retreated  to  the  drawing- 
room,  again  to  be  stared  at  politely  but  inter- 
mittently until  I  fled.  By  a  quick  detour  I 
reached  the  door,  but  there  I  was  a  prisoner 
while  for  two  hours  a  steady  tramping  con- 
tinued before  my  door.  To-day,  again,  the 
assiduous  stare.  I  fled — this  time  to  the 
manager. 

"Forgive  him,"  said  the  manager,  "he  is  an 
ill-mannered  person."  Forgive  him!  Kak 
Rysski — that  manager! 

Already  I  ache  with  the  violence  of  Rus- 
sian contrasts.  Is  not  this  the  land  whose 
women  Tolstoi  and  Turgenev  portray?  Are 
not  these  Russian  women  vigorous,  emanci- 
pated, comrades  to  man  in  every  national  and 
progressive  movement?  Has  the  sex-ridden 
world  ever  seen  such  camaraderie?  And  yet 
this  Russian  treats  me  like  a  Turk. 

As  soon  as  Russian  holidays  are  over  I 
shall  cease  to  be  merely  a  hotel  denizen  and 
go  just  across  the  Moika  to  live  with  Olga 
Stepanovna,  my  godmother's  friend;  per- 
haps Russia  then  will  give  up  her  secret.  Olga 
Stepanovna  called  to-day,  archly  pretty  in 
her  furs,  wistful  brown  eyes,  cheeks  pink  from 

78 


PETER'S    CAPITAL 

the  cold  and  that  intangible  fineness  that  satis- 
fies in  friendship.  She  is  private  secretary 
at  one  of  the  embassies  where  she  and  her 
husband  often  danced  at  the  embassy  balls. 
Some  story,  I  am  certain,  lies  back  of  that 
chiseled  face,  struck  off  so  incisively  with 
Slavic  gaiety  and  finished  so  softly  with 
Slavic  gentleness. 

M.  Novinsky  came,  too.  I  discovered  my 
voice  making  off  into  forbidden  side-streets  of 
delight  as  we  whisked  away  in  a  breathless 
sleigh  to  collect  our  luggage  from  the  Customs. 
It  is  delicious  to  see  a  face  which  does  not 
press  in  the  fact  of  one's  alienage.  Russia  is 
stranger  even  than  China;  the  very  extrava- 
gance of  China  sets  it  apart,  but  Russia  one 
expects  to  penetrate,  and  does  not. 

The  Customs  were  a  FingaTs  cave.  Each 
bearded  giant  arriving  bowed  to  the  room, 
kissed  the  hands  of  the  women  clerks,  and 
crossed  himself  to  the  ikons  in  the  corner. 
Over  all  hovered  an  ancient,  musty  mystery. 

"  I  wish  I  might  see  it  with  American  eyes," 
said  M.  Novinsky. 

"They  have  all  been  clipped  from  the 
Civil  War,"  I  ventured.  "I  have  seen  them 
all  on  my  grandfather's  wall," 

79 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

"That  is  Russia,"  answered  M.  Novinsky, 
himself  a  particularly  modern  and  immaculate 
note  in  this  ancient,  ikoned  murkiness,  "the 
oldest  of  Old  World  settings,  and  the  newest  of 
ideas."  I  wondered  what  it  meant  to  him, 
returned  from  "beyond  the  borders,"  all  this 
shagginess,  this  superstition,  this  unventilated 
North. 

M.  Novinsky 's  card  accelerated  the  pace 
and  augmented  the  bowing.  He  is  bringing 
magnificent  brocades  and  Han  bronzes.  The 
official  passed  our  trunks  perfunctorily  after 
he  had  tried  to  open  a  cake  of  my  soap.  I 
was  closing  my  luggage  when  my  glance  fell 
upon  a  trunk  at  the  other  end  of  a  room  from 
which  the  examiners  were  lifting  guns!  Be- 
side it  stood  a  man  with  particularly  well- 
poised  shoulders  and  blue  eyes. 

"Look!"  I  whispered  to  M.  Novinsky. 
"That  man — the  mine-owner's  servant." 

The  sharp  glance  which  M.  Novinsky 
turned  upon  him  had  little  of  the  exquisite 
dreamer. 

"Cest  vrai,"  he  answered,  speaking  per- 
emptorily to  the  boy  who  was  folding  the 
brocades.  "Let  us  go."  He  put  me  quickly 
into  a  sleigh. 

80 


PETER'S    CAPITAL 

My  interpreter  was  silent  and  abstracted 
as  we  flew  back  to  my  respectable  hotel 
through  the  pastel  streets,  clinging  limpet- 
wise  to  that  elusive  sleigh  which  threatened 
to  leave  us  at  every  corner.  As  for  me,  my 
color  sense  was  becoming  acclimatized.  There 
was  a  miraculous  flying  beauty  this  afternoon, 
I  admit,  in  the  spires  and  domes,  seen  dimly 
through  a  vaporous  gray,  the  pale  gold  of  the 
monastery  crosses  rising  amid  the  black  filigree 
of  the  trees,  and  the  whiteness  of  the  canals 
broken  into  linear  patterns  by  the  barges.  It 
is  the  vanishing  and  unreal  beauty  of  the 
north,  a  bit  low-keyed  and  evanescent  for 
eyes  accustomed  to  the  peacock  Orient. 

But  the  Customs  incident.  I  have  heard 
that  rifles  have  been  imported  from  Tsingtau 
which  certain  treacherous  Russian  factories 
have  used  as  models  for  accumulating  stores 
of  ammunition  fitting  German — not  Russian 
guns.  Have  I  seen  the  first  undercurrent  in 
"superb,  mysterious  Russia"? 

To-morrow  is  Russian  Christmas.  M.  No- 
vinsky  despatched  a  hasty  note  by  messenger, 
and  then  we  sat  at  the  window,  drinking  tea 
and  watching  the  sleighs  dash  up  and  bear 
off  the  trees  from  the  great  square  in  front  of 

81 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

St.  Isaac's  Cathedral.  There  had  been  a 
massed  formation  of  stiff  firs  pointing  greenly 
and  blithely  the  chill  Petrograd  skies,  when  I 
awoke,  but  the  ranks  were  now  plainly  deci- 
mated. The  Nevsky  Prospekt  might  almost 
be  Chicago  or  New  York,  except  that  it  is 
more  snowy,  more  furry,  and  there  are  more 
galoshes,  more  horses,  and  fewer  motors. 
Benevolent  old  gentlemen  poke  eleventh-hour 
turkeys  in  the  ribs;  the  small  boy  is  lost 
among  the  black-booted  officers  and  baggy- 
trousered,  short-haired  students ;  the  crowd  is 
beparceled  with  packages  from  the  sweet- 
shops and  jostles — no,  the  crowd  does  not 
jostle  as  in  America.  Russia  is  of  the  East. 

"Christmas  is  not  the  festa  in  Russia  that 
it  is  in  England  and  America,"  I  observe. 

"No,  with  us  the  occasion  magnificent  is 
Easter.  Then  the  angels  on  the  top  of  the 
cathedrals  trail  flaming  torches  against  the 
sky  and  all  the  dusky  interiors  shower  candles 
from  the  highest  vaulting.  And  it  is  con- 
gruous that  it  should  be  so.  Christmas,  the 
birth,  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  with  his  roots  in 
family  and  home.  Easter,  the  resurrection, 
for  the  Slav,  always  in  quest  of  God!" 

A  certain  passion  kindled  in  M.  Novinsky's 
82 


PETER'S    CAPITAL 

face  as  we  stood  at  the  window  silently  watch- 
ing the  mammoth  square  enveloped  in  the 
oncoming  dusk  and  the  great  cathedral,  ever 
remote  in  its  majesty,  now  still  farther  within 
its  shadows;  the  granite  columns  gleaming 
solemnly  as  gleam  their  kinsmen  on  the  Nile, 
the  great  dome  loSt  in  the  chiaroscuro  of 
night.  The  Russians  have  a  charming  word, 
which  you  understand  only  in  Russia— 
sympateechnie,  a  word  that  grows  tenderer 
in  Russian  than  its  counterpart  in  French. 
Do  Russians  love  Russia?  Not  perhaps  as 
the  Britisher  loves  the  bonny  isle,  its  sticks 
and  stones  and  every  inch  of  the  hawthorn 
hedges — no,  not  thus.  The  immensity  of 
steppe  and  tundra  cannot  thus  be  gathered 
into  an  intimate  personal  love.  Rather  as 
the  tragic  mother  is  Russia  loved — as  one 
loves  the  sorrowing  Mother  of  God.  I  had 
thought  of  Russia  as  fatal,  mysterious,  medie- 
val, but  to-night  as  I  watch  the  moon  rise 
over  St.  Isaac's  she  seems,  rather,  gentle, 
melancholy,  brooding. 


VII 

IN  A   RUSSIAN  HOUSEHOLD 

IT  seems  unco'  strange  to  be  part  of  a 
Russian  household,  perched  on  a  white 
canal  flowing  under  a  red  bridge,  a  magnified 
winter  Japan.  Opposite,  the  new  hotel  As- 
toria strikes  the  one  American  note  in  Petro- 
grad;  on  the  other  side  stands  the  Russian 
House  of  Lords.  From  my  window  I  can  see 
the  graceful  Italian  Embassy  and  what  re- 
mains of  the  German  Embassy  after  the 
populace  had  effaced  the  nude  figures  which 
had  always  offended  their  taste.  Farther 
down,  where  the  Moika  wanders  out  to  the 
Neva,  the  yellow  stucco  palace  of  Prince 
Yusuppoff  stirs  one's  sense  of  romance. 
Othello  himself  might  emerge  from  the  iron 
gates.  A  place  marked  surely  for  Shake- 
spearian tragedy!  I  am  as  puffed  up  as  a 
pouter  pigeon  after  this  Russian  fashion  of 
welcoming  a  new  householder!  Bowls  of 

84 


IN   A    RUSSIAN    HOUSEHOLD 

acacia  from  M.  Novinsky  fill  the  room  with 
fragrance ;  and  from  the  General  came  a  cake 
of  parts,  iced  and  garlanded  like  a  German 
denkmal,  borne  in  by  a  retinue,  the  dvornik 
and  two  little  peasant  maids. 

A  Russian  house  is  designed  for  nothing  so 
prosaic  as  living,  but  for  the  magnificence  of 
entertaining.  Our  rooms  open  in  a  row;  the 
ceilings  are  high,  the  windows  French,  the 
floors  are  the  beautiful  polished  floors  that 
one  associates  with  Russia  after  one  'has  lived 
in  this  land  of  wood.  My  room  is  long  and 
narrow  and  white,  like  a  prioress's  chamber. 
At  night  I  put  a  red  cushion  on  the  floor  and 
sit  in  the  glow  of  my  stove  in  the  wall.  Olga 
Stepanovna,  finding  me  thus,  named  me 
Tziganka.  Tziganka — the  blithe  Russian  word 
for  gipsy.  It  does  bring  back  the  feel  of 
junk  and  caravan  days.  Broad-waisted  Sasha 
supplies  the  stove  with  tindery  birch  bark, 
the  ruddy  glow  splashing  her  arms,  white  like 
the  birches  themselves. 

Olga  Stepanovna  says  that  when  spring 
opens  I  may  have  my  petit  dejeuner  on  the 
balcony  under  the  white  umbrella,  while  the 
barges  trail  past.  It  sounds  Italian  and 
tempting,  ri 'est-ce-pas?  But  the  snow  drifts 

85 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

like  the  setting  for  Snyeguritchka  (The  Snow 
Maiden),  and  in  the  mean  time  I  am  content 
with  the  fire  gleaming  across  the  spaces  of  the 
polished  floor  and  on  the  dull  gold  of  old  bind- 
ings in  the  drawing-room  and  a  cantankerous 
general  who  hangs  opposite  the  windows. 
The  samovar  is  always  set,  and  Sasha  or 
Dasha  near  to  give  me  tea.  Russian  tea  we 
have  at  nine  at  night  on  the  gay  blue-and-red 
peasant  cloth. 

This  Russian  drawing-room  interests  me 
immensely;  full  of  luxurious  trifles,  bearing 
an  air  of  French  sophistication,  but  wrapped 
indisputably  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  country 
larger  than  France;  reminiscent  of  the  day 
when  the  Russian  noble  sought  everything 
French  and  despised  everything  Russian,  but 
wearing  its  French  taste  as  a  decoration,  not 
the  measure  nor  the  mold  of  its  spirit.  From 
the  massiveness  of  the  furniture  and  a  general 
lavishness,  it  seems  to  a  French  drawing- 
room  as  a  man's  apartment  to  a  woman's. 
There  is  more  than  a  suggestion  of  the  sensuous 
Orient — a  case  of  damascened  daggers  and 
some  Persian  pottery.  One  need  not  scratch 
this  drawing-room  deep  to  find  the  Tartar! 
And  I  know  nothing  more  Slavic  than  this 

86 


IN   A   RUSSIAN   HOUSEHOLD 

acme  of  elegance  underlaid  with  the  bar- 
baric. 

We  are  a  quiet  household ;  Olga  Stepanovna, 
my  godmother's  friend  from  her  St.  Peters- 
burg days,  and  now  my  hostess;  Agasha 
Feodorovna,  a  gray  old  Russian  governess  of 
Olga  Stepanovna  (Olga  Stepanovna  shelters  all 
strays,  witness  Agasha  Feodorovna  and  me) ; 
Sasha  and  Dasha,  peasant  maids;  and  Dolly, 
a  white  doggie  asleep  on  a  blue  velvet  chair. 
Little  Dasha  wakes  me  with  peasant  rounde- 
lays— in  the  firm  and  shining-eyed  convic- 
tion that  she  serves  a  princess — and  old 
Agasha  tells  fairy-tales  around  the  samovar  at 
night.  After  this  enveloping  mantle  of  Rus- 
sian kindness,  all  other  is  a  thin,  worn  little 
shawl. 

It  was  sitting  in  this  drawing-room  last 
night  that  Olga  Stepanovna  told  me  some- 
thing of  the  history  of  the  Novinskys. 

"One  of  the  most  interesting  families  in 
Russia,"  she  said,  watching  the  fire,  "and  in 
Russia,  you  know,  it  is  far  less  a  matter  of 
title  than  it  is  of  great  families.  I  knew 
Madame  Novinska  when  she  was  a  girl,  the 
young  Princess  Korovotskaya.  Originally,  I 
believe,  they  were  French  barons  who  had  fled 

87 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

to  Russia  at  the  time  of  the  Huguenot  mas- 
sacre; another  branch  went  to  England,  and 
another  to  Italy.  The  members  of  this  branch 
have  intermarried  with  Russians  until  they 
are  pure  Russian;  no  entangling  German  al- 
liances. The  great-great-grandmother  of  this 
family  was  a  woman  of  great  spirit,  whom  the 
Empress  Elizabeth  admired  to  the  extent  of 
granting  her  immense  estates  in  Crimea.  It 
was  in  the  days  when  largesse  from  the  crown 
was  on  a  colossal  scale,  not  only  lands,  but 
revenue,  and  these  land-barons  were  poten- 
tates in  their  own  right,  not  unlike  the  lesser 
Indian  rajahs.  There  is  a  spicy  diary,  I 
believe,  in  the  Novinsky  family,  describing 
this  family  traveling  to  and  from  the  Crimea — 
carriages,  outriders,  postilions,  children,  tu- 
tors, governesses,  servants  by  the  score — in 
the  style  of  le  grand  baron.  The  Novinsky 
collection  of  miniatures  is  one  of  the  best  in 
Russia,  and  one  of  the  family  married  an 
Italian  from  whom  she  inherited  a  gallery  of 
Italian  portraits.  You  will  see  this  great  gal- 
lery at  the  Novinsky s'.  Madame  Novinska 
herself  much  resembles  her  French  ancestress. 
Dmitri  Nikolai vitch's  father  was  her  cousin,  a 
gallant  man  who  lost  his  life  in  the  Crimea. 

88 


IN   A    RUSSIAN    HOUSEHOLD 

"They  have  always  stood  for  Russia  great 
in  the  best  sense;  Monarchists,  but  liberal. 
Madame  Novinska's  father  freed  his  serfs  vol- 
untarily and  established  schools  for  them. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  have  all  been 
educated  abroad — in  Paris,  in  Vevey,  in 
England — they  have  devoted  endless  time 
and  constructive  work  to  their  estates  and  to 
the  agrarian  problem ;  and  it  is  not  always  easy 
to  work  with  the  peasants,  especially  in  Tver, 
where  their  land  lies.  They  have  always  been 
patrons  of  Russian  art,  too,  even  in  the  dark 
days,  when  every  one  was  building  hideous 
memorials  to  German  art.  In  the  famine  of 
1905  Tolstoi  counted  them  among  his  chief 
support,  and  Madame  Novinska  has  had  a 
school  for  the  revival  of  the  ancient  peasant 
weaving  and  embroideries.  A  splendid  fam- 
ily you  will  find  in  the  Novinskys,  and  Dmitri 
Nikolaivitch,  a  son  worthy  of  this  tradition — 
and  a  charming  younger  Russian.  It  is  the 
hope  of  Russia's  salvation,  this  type  of  young 
Russia,  and  not  the  fanatic  radical  with 
neither  experience  in  governing  nor  tradition, 
with  no  test  of  practical  action  to  balance  his 
ungovernable  theories  and  no  conception  of 
the  golden  mean  in  his  talk-intoxicated  brain. 

89 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

The  fall  of  bureaucracy,  the  establishment  of 
constitutional  monarchy,  backed  by  such  in- 
fluence as  that  of  the  Novinskys — ah,  there  is 
the  hope  of  Russia.  Would  that  there  were 
a  hundred  thousand  of  Dmitri  Nikolaivitch 
among  the  young  landed  nobility — anywhere 
—among  any  class.  Yes,  a  splendid  tradition 
—the  Novinsky  tradition." 

I  was  sitting  in  front  of  the  fire  this  after- 
noon, pondering  a  number  of  things — I  am 
still  a  prisoner  of  the  poison  mists — when 
little  Dasha  appeared,  with  M.  Novinsky  in 
her  train,  little  Dasha  stammering  and  blush- 
ing as  if  she  had  entangled  for  me  a  grand 
duke  in  this  black-booted,  immaculate  figure 
with  the  smile  of  a  young  Beethoven. 

"  Nu,  Americaine,  I  have  come  to  carry  you 
off  to  the  brilliance  of  Petrograd,"  M.  Novin- 
sky said,  depositing  his  stick  with  Dasha, 
who  blushed  with  pleasure  as  if  some  one  had 
bestowed  upon  her  a  coronet. 

"But,"  I  protested,  "one  does  not  go  to 
ballet  at  three  in  the  afternoon.  And  that  is 
the  brilliance  of  Petrograd,  n'est-ce-pas?" 

"No,"  he  said,  with  a  blithe  expression 
such  as  I  had  seen  but  once  or  twice  on  the 
steppe.  "One  does  not  go  to  ballet  at  three 

90 


IN   A    RUSSIAN    HOUSEHOLD 

in  the  afternoon.  One  goes  out  on  to  the  Mor- 
skaya,  where  all  the  Petrograd  world  assembles 
and  the  street  flows  like  a  river  with  those 
breathless  sleighs,  as  you  call  them,  and 
officers  in  red-lined  capes  and  deep,  silky  furs ; 
all  the  blues  and  grays  deepen  into  velvet 
blacks,  whites  turn  to  silver  and  the  air  is  a 
gauzy  iridescence.  It  is  the  most  perfect 
ballet  setting  in  Russia !  And  then  one  drinks 
tea  at  a  little  place  I  know  on  the  Nevsky — 
Russian  tea,  with  honey  cakes — and  then  one 
goes  at  five  to  the  cathedral  mass — for  the 
brilliance  of  Russia  is  a  brilliance  of  night  and 
interiors." 

"In  time  I  shall  be  counting  day  but  a 
caesura?" 

"And  night  the  consistent  interval,  as  it 
is  in  Russian  winter,"  smiled  M.  Novinsky, 
gravely. 

Dasha  had  been  coming  and  going  with  the 
tea-things,  her  nose  and  chin  and  eyes  shining 
like  the  seraphim.  "  Nyet,  Dasha.  No  sa- 
movar to-day.  I  am  carrying  the  barishnya 
away  for  tea  and  for  mass.  Otchen  kraseevi — 
it's  very  beautiful,  mass  at  Isaac's."  There 
is  something  of  the  Celt  in  M.  Novinsky; 
something  of  that  exquisite  sensibility  of  a  race 

91 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

old  in  living.  I  had  never  been  more  aware 
of  it  than  when  he  spoke  with  his  amazing 
gentleness  to  the  little  peasant.  Is  this  the 
Russian  noble,  this  wearing  smooth  of  the 
grooves,  or  is  this  only  Dmitri  Nikolai vitch? 

Petrograd  is  brilliant  by  night  and  interiors. 
I  saw  it  to-day.  And  of  all  the  pale  back- 
ground the  shimmering  opulence  of  the  cathe- 
drals is  the  richest  punctuation.  Every  trav- 
eler finds  that  the  land  through  which  he 
travels  is  a  land  of  contrasts,  and  I  am  no 
exception.  Russia  is  extravagant  in  her  ex- 
tremes. And  from  the  artist's  point  of  view 
there  is  no  more  breathless  turning  of  the 
page  than  that  from  the  wan  streets  to  the 
cathedral  interiors,  aglow  with  jewels  and 
the  sheen  of  gold  and  silver,  and  hung  with 
moving  veils  of  incense. 

I  have  never  crossed  the  square  and  failed 
to  be  inexpressibly  thrilled.  It  is  a  splendid 
medieval  pageant:  the  heavy  massing  of  the 
shadows  in  the  great  spaces;  the  dusky  gleam 
of  myriad  candles  high  in  the  vaulting;  the 
ancient  barbaric  mystery  of  the  ikons;  the 
fall  of  light  on  the  iridescent  chasubles  of 
the  priesthood  emerging  from  the  gloom  of 
the  chancel. 

92 


IN   A   RUSSIAN   HOUSEHOLD 

"It  is  true,"  I  confessed  to  M.  Novinsky 
as  we  stood  apart  in  a  niche.  "There  is  a 
magnificat  of  splendor  in  this  shadow-filled, 
incensed,  and  jeweled  dusk,  beside  which  an 
English  cathedral  seems  cold  and  a  Chinese 
temple  barren." 

M.  Novinsky 's  face  bore  something  of  the 
rapt  look  with  which  he  handles  an  old  ivory. 
"Vereschagin  painted  it  in  his  Japanese  in- 
teriors," he  said,  lifting  his  eyes  to  the  blue 
light  playing  about  the  lapis  lazuli  columns, 
"this  immemorial  magnificence,  this  heaping 
of  treasure  without  ostentation,  but  with  an 
exaltation  strange  to  the  intellectualist  of  the 
West.  Once  having  seen  a  Russian  cathedral, 
one  can  never  doubt  that  Russia's  Christianity 
is  of  the  East,  and  her  spirit  of  worship  is  that 
of  the  oldest  of  mankind."  As  he  spoke  with 
his  eyes  turned  upward  to  the  pillared  dusk  of 
the  cathedral — Egyptian  in  its  majesty — I 
think  something  new  stirred  in  my  conscious- 
ness— of  religion. 

M.  Novinsky  was  keeping  an  appointment, 
but  I  lingered  for  hours  in  the  shadow  of  a 
niche  while  the  stream  of  humanity  ebbed  and 
flowed  around  the  feet  of  the  Mother  of  God; 
and  above  the  worshipers,  through  the  spaces 

93 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

of  the  cathedral  and  into  the  vaulting,  poured 
a  flood  of  tender,  compassionate  Russian  sing- 
ing. The  French  say  that  a  man  is  his  style, 
but  the  Russian  is  his  religion.  And  the 
more  one  stands  in  the  sanctuary  the  more 
deeply  one  peers  into  his  soul.  Can  one  ever 
forget  how  the  souls  of  Gorky's  submerged 
ones  floated  away  on  a  ribbon  of  sound  when 
first  one  and  then  another  took  up  the  song 
in  the  damp  bakery  cellar?  I  have  never 
heard  such  singing.  Waves  of  religious  feel- 
ing "rolled  through  me,  as  through  a  great 
organ." 

I  have  always  resented  Life's  caricatures — 
those  faces  nearing  the  journey's  end,  piti- 
lessly distorted  with  toil  and  sorrow!  To-day 
I  saw  a  bit  of  human  wreckage  kneeling  before 
the  ikon  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  touching  her  head 
reverently  to  the  floor  and  crossing  herself 
with  the  broad  sign  of  the  Russian  cross. 
But  when  she  raised  her  head  her  eyes  fastened 
on  the  Mother  of  God  with  a  tenderness  for 
one  moment  of  which  I  would  gladly  have 
given  ten  years  of  my  life.  Perhaps  it  is 
superstition — unquestionably,  the  Slav  needs 
to  associate  works  with  faith — but  I  cannot 
but  believe  that  this  annihilation  of  self  and 

94 


IN   A    RUSSIAN   HOUSEHOLD 

adoration  of  a  God  is  an  excellent  thing  in 
human  experience. 

Next  after  the  mother  came  a  general, 
clanking  the  gold-tasseled  sword  of  distin- 
guished service.  He  did  not  touch  the  floor 
with  hisf orehead,  but  he  crossed  himself  slowly, 
kissed  the  ikons,  and  passed  out,  his  silver  spurs 
jingling  faintly  in  an  interval  of  the  music. 
A  glancing  little  figure  in  a  red  velvet  hat 
and  ermine  tripped  up  the  steps  of  the  ikon, 
saluted  the  ancient  lemon-hued  visage  with 
fresh  lips,  and  passed  on,  making  way  for 
those  dusty  gray  figures  we  had  met  in  transit 
across  Siberia.  They  are  legless  and  armless 
now,  and  their  stubby  hair  is  hidden  under 
white  bandages;  they  are  in  charge  of  a  Red 
Cross  nurse  and  a  sanitar.  Evidently  from  a 
far  province  these,  perhaps  even  from  those 
wild  Chinese  borders  we  had  passed.  All  the 
city  is  strange,  the  streets  and  the  cathedrals; 
even  the  language  is  not  theirs.  But  the 
ikons  are  their  own — the  Holy  Fathers  wisely 
saw  that  it  should  be  thus  centuries  ago  when 
they  forbade  a  change  in  the  sacred  images — 
and  it  is  the  ikons  they  seek  last  before 
they  go  to  battle  and  first  —  if  ever  they 
return. 

95 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

I  walked  slowly  back,  to  find  Olga  Stepa- 
novna  deep  in  the  outgoing  embassy  mail. 

"  Nu,  Amerikanka,"  she  inquired,  looking  up 
with  her  arch,  sparkling  smile,  "do  you  find 
us  idolaters?" 

"No,"  I  answered.  "Each  nation  must 
have  its  own  worship  as  each  nation  its  own 
idiom  of  language,  and  I  can  understand  that 
for  the  Slavonic  soul,  passionate  and  idealis- 
tic, the  form  must  be  both  glowing  and  mysti- 
cal. In  China  and  Japan  I  often  felt  that  the 
temples  were  deserted  because  the  gods  had 
fled  the  souls  of  those  who  prayed,  but 
here  God  is — because  He  is  in  the  souls  of  the 
worshipers." 

"That  is  true  of  the  Slav,"  she  said,  her 
eyes  filling  as  M.  Novinsky's  had  filled  with 
mysticism.  "The  Russian  feels  two  things 
supremely:  the  brotherhood  of  man  and  the 
adoration  of  God.  Self-annihilation  in  love — 
that's  the  heart  of  the  Russian.  The  saving 
of  his  own  individual  soul  interests  him  least 
of  all.  But  he  can  find  no  comfort  or  in- 
spiration in  abstract  logic  or  reason.  He  must 
have  something  at  which  he  may  light  the 
flame  of  his  spirit — something  radiant  and 
sensuous;  legends,  symbols;  something  mys- 

96 


IN   A    RUSSIAN   HOUSEHOLD 

tical  by  which  he  may  be  caught  up  out  of 
his  own  soul  and  merged  with  God — trans- 
muted and  purified.  And  do  you  know,  mod- 
ern as  I  am,  I  always  feel  an  almost  translated 
happiness  in  confessional  and  mass." 

"Does  that  solve  the  mystery  of  M. 
Novinsky,  I  wonder?"  I  pondered.  "In  his 
mind  he  is  agnostic,  but  to-day  he  was  full  of 
the  worship  of  the  East." 

"Yes,  I  think  that  solves  it.  Dmitri 
Nikolaivitch  is  modern  Russian,"  said  Olga 
Stepanovna,  "struggling  with  new  philoso- 
phies, but  in  his  heart  the  anciently  dreaming, 
mystic  Slav." 


VIII 

THE  LEE   OF   THE   WAR 

HPHE  Autocrat  of  All  the  Quartiers,  the 
1  brush  -  whiskered  old  soldier  who  plays 
at  being  a  dvornik,  has  just  climbed  the  stairs 
with  the  post.  Perhaps  his  heart  is  softened, 
too,  by  those  blue  and  yellow  junks  that  sail 
in  with  Chinese  cargo.  Oh,  for  one  touch  of 
Pekinese  gold  in  this  twilight  North!  There, 
in  Peking,  Lise's  letter  runs,  the  apricot  roofs 
are  piled  with  snow  like  monster  meringues. 
Strings  of  camels,  shaggily  furred  by  a  long 
summer  in  Mongolia,  or  bearers  of  tribute 
from  Tibet,  tread  disdainfully  the  road  be- 
neath the  crimson  walls  of  the  Forbidden  City. 
Kites,  yellow  and  blue  and  green,  hang  over 
the  courts  in  a  turquoise  sky.  Small  need 
for  geographers  to  explain  to  me  the  "drang 
nach  Osten." 

But  I  have  found  something  here  in  this 
pale  North  almost  as  lovely  as  a  bamboo  grove 

98 


THE   LEE   OF   THE   WAR 

—my  second  Russian  caller,  Mile.  Novinska. 
She  came  to-day  in  a  smart  Russian  turnout, 
one  of  those  low  sleighs  filled  with  furs,  a 
dapper  groom  clinging  bat-like  in  the  rear,  and 
black  horses  covered  with  blue  nets.  The 
nets  are  to  prevent  snow  from  flying  into  the 
sleighs,  a  comment  on  this  Jehu-like  Russian 
driving.  If  Undine  had  driven,  I  am  sure  her 
horses  would  have  been  like  these. 

Tall,  picturesque,  le  plus  pur  type  aris- 
tocrat, Mile.  Novinska.  Long  gray  eyes, 
like  Dmitri  Nikolaievitch's,  but  more  heavily 
fringed  with  black,  and  a  curious  Syrian  qual- 
ity like  that  of  Zuloaga's  Countess  Matthieu  de 
Noailles.  She  has  that  suggestion  of  sleeping 
power  which  is  characteristic  of  the  Russian, 
and  an  extremely  rare  simplicity  of  manner, 
the  product  of  as  many  centuries  of  civiliza- 
tion as  an  English  turf.  One  of  her  ancestors 
figures  in  Boris  Godunov,  which,  perhaps,  es- 
tablishes her  right  to  the  manner.  She  wore  a 
black  frock  and — it  sounds  melodramatically 
Russian,  but  it  is  true — a  single  string  of 
extraordinarily  beautiful  pearls. 

I  was  seized  with  a  spasm  of  fright  until  she 
spoke,  and  then  I  breathed  easily.  It  was 
English.  The  Russian  offers  this  language- 
8  99 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

courtesy,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  more 
nationalities  than  any  one  else  in  the  world. 
The  Orient  interested  her,  and  we  talked  long 
of  China.  Curiously  enough,  the  Russian 
travels  far  oftener  in  the  West  than  in  that 
ancient  land,  where  his  ancestry  was  brewed. 
All  the  capital  is  in  black  these  days;  hence 
Mile.  Novinska's  wearing  of  black  had  meant 
nothing  to  me,  but  I  can  never  forgive  myself 
for  the  pain  which  a  random  remark  of  mine 
brought  to  her  face — a  look  of  despair  which 
made  me  know  once  for  all  that  I  had  never 
touched  even  the  fringes  of  sorrow. 

"  Perhaps  my  brother  has  not  told  you," 
she  said.  I  do  not  yet  understand  her  con- 
fidence unless  it  be  that  desperate  frankness 
that  one  may  feel  for  a  stranger.  "I  have 
lost  my  fiance  in  one  of  the  early  battles  in 
Galicia."  And  then  she  related  to  me  the 
story,  quietly,  almost  objectively. 

He  had  been  a  young  marechal  de  noblesse 

in  the  province  of  X and  he  had  long 

loved  her.  "And  I,"  she  said,  with  a  wist- 
ful humility,  "I  loved  freedom."  And  then 
came  the  call  to  arms.  As  she  described  the 
summons,  the  crowds  marching  through  the 
streets,  singing  that  wonderful  soldiers'  chorus, 

IOO 


THE    LEE    OF   THE    WAR 

kneeling  bareheaded  before  the  Winter  Palace 
and  thronging  the  cathedrals  with  streaming 
faces,  the  sadness  vanished  and  her  eyes 
burned  with  deep  Slavonic  fire.  I  could  feel 
her  own  enthusiasm  take  wing,  I  could  see  the 
brilliant  man  caught  up  in  the  exaltation  of 
the  moment,  and  I  could  hear  Russia  singing 
her  high  song. 

"I  could  not  refuse  him  then,"  she  said, 
quietly. 

It  was  early  in  September.  His  regiment 
went  almost  immediately  to  the  front.  At 
first  there  were  letters,  hasty  scribbles,  telling 
of  the  blue-and-gold  autumn  hanging  over  the 
trenches,  of  the  stifling  pits,  of  the  will  to  kill 
and  the  blackness  in  the  charge. 

Then  fell  silence. 

October  brought  no  message.  November, 
too,  limped  by  without  a  line,  but  December 
laid  the  envelope  from  the  War  Office  on  her 

desk — "Lieutenant ,  shrapnel  in  his  side 

while  leading  a  charge" — and  that  was  all. 
The  brilliance  fled ;  not  a  trace  of  the  man  who 
had  gone  out  into  the  sunshine  that  September 
day,  nor  a  sword,  for  remembrance'  sake. 

"I  am  sorry  I  had  not  told  you,"  said 

JOI 


MISS  AMERIKANKA 

M.  Novinsky.  "I  was  not  certain  of  Na- 
talya's  wishes.  It  was  difficult  for  you,"  he 
added,  regarding  me  intently. 

"Ah,  but  she  is  so  young!"  I  cried.  "She 
will  find  the  will  to  live  again.  Tell  me, 
Dmitri  Nikolaievitch,  that  she  will  find  en- 
thusiasm for  life!" 

M.  Novinsky  had  come  in  with  a  volume  of 
Claudel  for  me  and  stood,  his  slim  back  to  the 
fire,  looking  down  with  thoughtful  eyes  at  the 
cathedral  square  and  the  tiny  figures  hurrying 
through  the  dusk  under  the  bronze  warrior, 
while  the  bells  chimed  from  a  tower  across 
the  Neva. 

"I  do  not  know,"  he  said,  gravely.  "With 
us  love  is  like  worship.  We  fall  in  love  more 
deeply  and  more  seriously,  perhaps,  than  you. 
It  is  an  actual  factor  in  our  lives.  You  re- 
member Sonia  and  Raskolnikoff.  It  is  like 
that,  together — a  sort  of  spiritual  regenera- 
tion. We  put  it  at  the  heart  of  everything. 
We  expect  more  of  it — and  without  it  we  are 
more  bereft." 

The  realities  seem  to  be  freshening  and 
deepening  these  days  in  Russia,  like  some 
great  tide.  Love  and  religion !  How  poignant 
and  beautiful  life  might  be! 

202 


THE  LEE  OF  THE  WAR 

I  am  all  alone  in  the  house,  except  for  Sasha, 
Dasha,  and  the  fire.  It  is  Saturday  night,  a 
long  evening  to  squander.  Below-stairs  the 
little  girl  who  studies  at  the  conservatoire  is 
playing  Tchaikowsky  softly,  softly.  Dasha 
has  just  brought  a  big  arm-load  of  birch  bark 
for  my  stove  in  the  wall,  with  a  shy  smile  for 
the  barishnya. 

Dasha  is  not  of  that  hierarchy  of  Perfect  Ser- 
vants, but  she  is  one  of  the  gems  of  Petrograd, 
along  with  St.  Isaac's  and  the  Alexander  Third 
Museum  and  the  ballet.  Olga  Stepanovna 
found  her  with  a  Russian  priest  in  the  coun- 
try, where  she  performed  the  duties  of  a 
slavey  at  the  rate  of  a  dollar  a  month.  The 
frock  in  which  she  stood,  a  shawl,  an.d  a 
string  of  beloved  beads,  together  with  an 
undersized  body,  were  her  earthly  possessions; 
but  she  possessed  one  thing  not  earthly,  and 
that  was  her  soul.  I  had  been  in  the  house 
some  three  days  before  I  really  was  aware  of 
Dasha,  so  obscure,  so  like  dust  beneath  every- 
body's chariot  wheels,  so  completely  merged 
with  the  background  was  she,  and  not  un- 
til last  week  did  she  become  a  distinct  pat- 
tern. 

I  was  alone  in  the  house  when  a  strange 
103 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

melody  came  stealing  into  my  study,  a  lit- 
tle melody  full  of  minors  and  unexpected 
intervals  and  forbidden  tuggings  at  one's 
heart-strings.  The  source,  I  discovered,  was 
the  kitchen,  and  I  stood  quite  still  outside 
the  door.  A  bit  of  church  ritual  followed  the 
quaint  melody,  one  of  those  beautiful  chants 
sung  in  every  house  of  God  in  Russia.  I 
gently  pushed  open  the  door.  There  in  the 
great  Russian  kitchen,  between  the  porcelain 
stove  and  the  window,  sat  Dasha,  singing  and 
polishing  brasses,  which  shone  not  more  than 
her  eyes  and  her  nose  and  her  chin.  Blushing 
and  wiping  her  hands  on  her  red-and-blue 
peasant  apron  at  the  presence  of  a  barishnya 
in  the  kitchen,  she  tumbled  off  her  high  stool. 
If  you  could  have  seen  her — so  shy  and 
awkward,  mattering  so  little  to  any  one  in  the 
world,  spawn  cast  on  the  tides  of  life  in 
Russia's  careless  man-making,  just  a  tiny 
candle  in  the  wind!  The  fates  must  have 
lent  me  a  seventh  sense  for  Russian;  some- 
how we  made  friends,  and  then  she  sang  the 
little  folk-song  again  and  again  for  me,  with 
blushes  at  every  stanza.  Afterward  we  talked 
mostly  about  mothers — her  mother  and  my 
mother.  It  costs  three  dollars  to  go  from 

104 


THE    LEE   OF   THE   WAR 

Petrograd  to  her  village,  and  she  had  not  seen 
her  mother  for  two  years. 

Olga  Stepanovna  she  adores  as  one  of  the 
saints,  and  just  now  she  leaned  over  my  table 
to  tell  me  that  I  am  a  choroshaya  barishnya — 
a  bonny  lady.  When  I  ask  her  why,  she  is 
reduced  to  saying  that  she  is  growing  used 
to  me.  Such  a  Russian  answer!  When  I 
ask  the  soldiers  in  the  hospital,  where  I  have 
been  much  of  late,  if  they  were  frightened  on 
the  field  or  are  tired  in  hospital,  they  in- 
variably answer,  as  Ivan  Caspitch  had  an- 
swered on  the  steppe,  as  Dasha  answers,  "No, 
barina;  we're  used  to  it." 

Absurd  little  Dasha,  running  at  every  one's 
bidding,  aslant  at  an  angle  of  forty-five  de- 
grees, which  threatens  to  precipitate  her  and 
still  further  tip-tilt  her  premature  nose,  keep- 
ing the  samovar  for  us  at  night  after  the 
theater,  flying  to  buy  the  last  edition  of  the 
Vremya,  rushing  down  four  flights  of  stairs 
to  give  Dolly  an  airing  in  the  court.  Once  I 
knew  her  to  surrender  her  only  holiday  in  two 
weeks  lest  the  doggie  be  lonely,  alone  in 
the  house.  Every  morning  I  hear  Agasha's 
querulous,  gray  voice  scolding  and  calling  her 
stupid.  Agasha  is  doubtless  right;  but  in 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

this  strange  land  I  would  not  exchange  little 
peasant  Dasha  for  G.  B.  S.  himself! 

Sasha  is  buxom  and  different.  Her  attitude 
is  hands  on  hips  and  her  expression  a  general, 
"What's  to  be  done?"  which  usually  means 
that  something  ought  to  be  and  nothing  will 
be  done.  No  one  would  charge  Sasha  with 
running — at  any  angle. 

Sasha  has  been  looking  very  troubled  re- 
cently, and  one  morning  last  week,  when  she 
brought  Olga  Stepanovna's  coffee,  Olga  Step- 
anovna  questioned  her.  After  fidgeting  about 
the  room,  she  finally  stammered  in  some  em- 
barrassment, "Father's  been  troubling  mother, 
barina." 

"'Father's  been  troubling  mother!'"  re- 
peated Olga  Stepanovna.  "But  I  thought 
your  father  was  dead,  Sasha." 

"Yes,  he's  dead,  but  he  has  been  troub- 
ling mother  —  and  all  the  neighbors  say 
it  isn't  right  that  father  should  trouble 
mother." 

"But  how,  milaya?  Tell  me  how  your 
father  troubles  your  mother."  Olga  Step- 
anovna gently  questioned  her.  "How  can 
the  dead  trouble  the  living?" 

"He  follows  her,  barina,  and  sometimes  he 


THE    LEE   OF   THE    WAR 

walks  opposite  in  the  road  when  she  goes  to 
church." 

"Do  other  people  see  him?" 

"No,  but  she  always  sees  him." 

"Does  he  speak  to  her?" 

"No,  he  doesn't  speak  to  her." 

"Is  she  afraid?" 

"  No,  of  course  she  isn't  afraid.  It's  father. 
But  why  does  he  walk  there?  What  are  we 
to  do,  barina?" 

Olga  Stepanovna  is  a  saint,  and  wise  be- 
sides; moreover,  it  is  not  the  first  time  she  has 
had  to  deal  with  a  Russian. 

"You  know  the  little  Chapel  of  the  Mother 
of  God,  Sasha?"  she  asked. 

Sasha  knew. 

"Then  you  must  go  to  buy  candles  and  burn 
them  there,  and  you  must  ask  the  priest  to 
pray  for  your  father's  soul,  and  every  day 
you  must  go  and  pray  there,  too." 

Sasha  would. 

"When  you  have  done  that,  I  will  write  to 
your  mother  what  you  have  done  and  that 
you  have  been  a  good  daughter  and  that  she 
must  believe,  for  that  will  help  the  soul  to  find 
peace." 

Fancy  charging  a  baba  with  hallucinations 
107 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

and  sending  her  to  a  nerve  specialist!  The 
priest  is  the  peasant's  nerve  specialist,  and 
there  are  many  worse.  After  all,  who  knows? 
Perhaps  it  is  we  whose  eyes  are  holden  and 
the  peasant  mother  who  sees. 

Now  Sasha  has  been  to  pray  and  to  burn 
candles  and  the  priest  has  promised  a  Mass. 
And  yesterday  Olga  Stepanovna  wrote  the  old 
troubled  mother  in  the  country.  Now  may 
peace  be  upon  the  souls  of  the  living  and  of  the 
dead! 

Sasha  has  just  come  in  to  ask  if  there  is  a 
post  to  America.  The  cook  next  door  says 
there  isn't. 

We  dwell  under  the  lee  of  the  war  these  days 
as  under  the  shadow  of  a  mighty  Golgotha. 
My  first  waking  consciousness  is  of  soldiers 
marching,  sharp  hoarse  uras  and  sometimes 
a  strain  of  battle-song — the  same  troubled  un- 
ease that  I  sensed  that  first  morning  in  the 
darkness.  It  is  not  yet  light,  but  the  boots  are 
trampling  and,  stirring  luxuriously  in  my  warm 
bed,  I  know  that  the  cold  gray  squares  in  front 
of  Kazan  and  the  Winter  Palace  are  filling  with 
men.  They  are  always  in  the  background  of 
one's  consciousness,  these  figures  dim  in  the 

108 


THE    LEE   OF   THE   WAR 

half-light,  their  tall  Cossack  caps  drifted  with 
white,  their  coats  turned  ludicrously  back 
like  evening  dress;  simple  sunburnt  faces 
and  muscular  bodies,  soon  to  be  set  against 
German  steel.  Crunch — crunch — crunch — a 
pause.  I  know  that  interval.  Twenty  yards 
of  wriggling  on  their  stomachs  through  the 
snow.  A  straw  enemy  hangs  obligingly  ahead 
and  there  is  a  bayonet  charge,  bloodless  and 
without  qualms.  The  paws  of  the  bear  hold  a 
bayonet  as  deftly  as  a  connoisseur  would 
handle  a  bit  of  peachblow,  and  plainsmen's 
eyes  trained  to  the  steppe  pierce  easily  the 
light  mists  of  a  cathedral  square 

Yesterday  I  was  walking  along  the  Neva 
when  a  group  of  those  dusty  gray  figures 
thronging  everywhere  emerged  suddenly  from 
a  side-street,  their  wiry  Siberian  ponies  half 
hidden  under  their  long  capes,  their  bayonets 
upright  like  a  shining  bamboo  forest,  singing 
something  short  and  primitive  that  breaks 
into  strange  rhythms,  stirs  the  pulse,  and 
grips  the  throat;  gray,  almost  impalpable 
shapes  wrapped  in  the  mists,  sitting  their 
horses  like  centaurs.  Russian  accents  are  so 
strange  to  Anglo-Saxon  ears  that  they  set  one 
wondering  whether  the  whole  Russian  bio- 

109 


logical  and  psychological  beat  is  not  different. 
The  war  correspondents  declare  that  war  is 
shorn  of  its  picturesqueness ;  but  how  escape  a 
flight  of  blood  through  the  body  at  the  sight 
of  these  Asiatics  flung  off  when  the  mold  of 
the  world  was  young?  There  are  far  more 
here  than  in  the  station  at  Irkutsk ;  a  sense  of 
monstrously  primeval  life  such  as  one  is  aware 
of  in  Tolstoi's  Cossacks.  How  Milton  would 
have  rolled  out  their  names  in  sonorous  ca- 
dences!— Persians,  Kirghiz,  Sarts,  Turkomans, 
Ostraks,  Armenians,  Lithuanians,  Dunkans, 
Afghans,  Cherkesses,  Zinians,  Shamans,  Os- 
satines,  Lesghians,  Kalmuks,  Tchudes,  Geor- 
gians, Samoyedes,  Tchouvachs,  Tcheremis- 
sans,  Tartars,  Little  Russians,  White  Rus- 
sians, Great  Russians.  A  sad  loss  for  the 
great  epic-maker!  It  is  not  liking  I  feel  for 
Russia,  but  I  am  fascinated  by  her — fascinated 
by  her  potential  power,  the  congress  of  these 
violent  semi-Asiatic  tribes;  it  thrills  all  the 
nomadic  turbulence  in  me,  exceedingly  thinly 
veneered  by  civilization. 

M.  Novinsky  came  with  me  to-day  to  the 
American  hospital,  where  I  work  twice  a  week, 
and  the  men  talked  as  one  Russian  to  another. 
In  general,  the  Slav  is  more  aware  of  the 

no 


THE   LEE   OF   THE   WAR 

stream  of  his  consciousness  and  its  significance 
than  the  Anglo-Saxon.  Even  the  peasant,  a 
primitive  esthete,  tastes  the  flavor  of  his 
perceptions,  expressing  them  crudely,  but 
often  with  biblical  force.  Some  one  has 
imaged  these  two  moods  of  emotion  and  ap- 
preciation as  "two  runners  racing  abreast, 
one  oblivious  of  all  but  the  motion,  the  other, 
with  eyes  not  on  the  goal,  riot  blind  with  the 
rush  of  it,  but  turned,  deeply  observant,  on  the 
face  of  his  companion."  That  is  the  Russian; 
the  Anglo-Saxon  does  not  run,  he  plods — and 
singly. 

The  soldier  fresh  from  the  shock  of  battle- 
field is  silent,  but  as  the  keen  edge  of  memory 
is  turned  he  grows  more  communicative.  It 
was  Sergei  Pavlovitch  who  talked  most  to-day, 
Sergei  Pavlovitch  from  somewhere  deep  in 
the  Caucasus,  eyes  tender  and  blue  as  a  girl's, 
cheeks  as  pink  as  a  Siberian  crab-apple. 

"There  were  four  of  them,"  Sergei  Pavlo- 
vitch said,  relating  an  incident  in  Galicia — 
"three  men  and  an  officer.  We  found  them 
in  an  old  house.  The  officer  would  not  sur- 
render. He  tried  to  throw  himself  down  a 
well.  We  killed  them — with  bayonets.  What 
else  was  to  be  done?"  And  the  hands  that 

in 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

held  the  bayonet  delicately  turned  the  stem 
of  a  pink  tissue  Easter  rose. 

I  looked  at  Sergei  Pavlovitch  and  I  won- 
dered, as  I  often  wonder  when  I  look  at  more 
weather-beaten  faces,  if  these  steppe  eagles 
ever  pity  their  foe.  To-day  I  asked  a  trans- 
Siberian  Cossack  with  a  peaked  head  and  a 
face  that  might  have  come  from  Dostoev- 
ski's House  of  the  Dead,  not  a  typical  Russian 
face  nor  one  from  which  you  would  expect 
quarter. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  cheerfully,  "when  the  order 
is  passed  through  the  trenches  to  charge,  you 
shout  and  run.  Everything  goes  black.  You 
do  not  think.  You  kill."  And  then  a  slow 
smile  began  to  overspread  his  face. 

"How  is  it  possible  for  the  Russian  to  make 
a  good  soldier?"  I  asked  M.  Novinsky,  as  we 
turned  away  from  the  trans-Siberian  Cossack. 
"His  nature  melts  away  into  kindness  like  but- 
ter on  bleeni,  as  the  plain  flattens  away  from 
the  horizon." 

"No  Russian  positively  enjoys  fighting 
except  the  Cossack,"  answered  M.  Novinsky 
with  an  amused  smile.  "The  Russian  is  as 
unmilitary  as  the  Chinese,  but  the  world  does 
not  know  it.  It  is  the  one  factor  to  be  con- 


THE   LEE   OF   THE    WAR 

sidered  when  the  bogy  of  Pan-Slavism  is  held 
before  Europe.  The  German?  Of  course  the 
German  knows  this!  and  laughs  contemptu- 
ously up  his  sleeve.  But  it  is  part  of  his 
game  holding  the  Slavic  peril  over  Europe. 
The  peasant  will  fight,  if  he  must,  stubbornly 
and  without  squeamishness.  It  is  for  the 
Little  Father.  But  his  idea  is  always  to  be 
killed  rather  than  kill.  And  zest?  He  has 
no  zest  for  a  fight  as  a  fight.  The  Russian 
peasant  harbors  far  less  animal  resentment 
than  he  is  credited  with;  he  is  too  much  a 
'brother'  to  all  the  world  to  hold  a  grudge; 
he  has  no  logical  mental  insistence  on  right. 
The  only  resistance  he  shows  consistently  is  a 
fatalistic  lethargy.  Do  you  know,  if  the 
truth  were  known,  what  every  one  of  those 
fellows  is  dreaming  of?  A  little  izba  under 
the  birches.  A  Cossack  Europe,  did  Na- 
poleon say?  Russia  might  roll  over  on  Europe 
in  her  sleep,  but  she  would  never  have  the 
desire  or  the  collected  energy  to  step  on  her." 
There  are  two  new  cases  this  week,  sent 
over  from  the  central  distributing  hospital. 
One  is  a  pink-cheeked  boy  with  exaggeratedly 
solemn  blue  eyes  and  an  equally  exaggerated 
appetite.  He  is  in  the  hospital  for  what  is 

"3 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

termed  a  scratch — a  fissure  an  inch  deep  the 
length  of  his  leg — and  pneumonia  which  he 
caught  in  trench  water  and  by  which  he  feels 
himself  disgraced.  When  the  men  chaff  him 
his  blue  eyes  fill  with  tears  and  he  doubles  up 
his  fists.  He  continues  to  look  misused 
through  dinner  while  he  speedily  stows  away 
two  plates  of  soup,  two  plates  of  meat  and 
vegetables,  and  two  bowls  of  mannaya  kasha. 
The  second  patient  is  a  beady-eyed  little  man 
with  whom  I  sometimes  play  checkers.  The 
expression  of  concentrated  cunning  on  his 
face  when  he  tracks  my  men  has  opened  a  new 
window  in  the  peasant  soul  and  explained 
some  of  the  cruelties  against  man  and  beast 
in  the  uprising  of  1905  which  I  had  never 
understood.  I  can  never  win  at  checkers  and 
I  should  not  like  to  match  wits  with  him 
seriously.  To-day  Gregory  stood  on  his  crutch 
behind  me  and  helped  the  Amerikanotchka 
against  the  beady-eyed  man. 

We  were  in  the  midst  of  it  when  the  Am- 
bassador came  with  the  aide-de-camp  of  the 
Emperor,  sending  a  wild  flutter  through  the 
hospital.  Oddly  enough,  the  aide  is  a  friend 
of  M.  Novinsky's,  a  keen,  dry  military  man, 
and  we  strolled  through  the  hospital  with 

114 


Life  welling  up  from  depths  passionate, 
barbaric 


THE    LEE   OF   THE    WAR 

him.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  seen  M. 
Novinsky  with  a  man  of  his  own  rank  since 
we  had  come  to  Petrograd,  and  his  ease  and 
knowledge  of  affairs  set  me  wondering  whether 
he  was  not  the  cosmopolitan  first  and  Slav 
second.  No,  he  is  Slav  first.  And  if  I  do 
not  mistake,  something  of  significance  is 
shaping  itself  behind  those  steadfast  Slavic 
eyes. 

Vereshagin  did  a  mad  thing  last  week. 
Some  one  had  sent  a  guitar,  with  a  blue  bow, 
which  every  one  has  had  a  turn  at  strum- 
ming. There  are  two  balalaikas  also,  and 
sometimes  the  music  mounts  fast  and  furious, 
one  voice  leading  and  others  taking  up  the 
song  at  different  intervals  in  Russian  fashion. 
Suddenly  Vereshagin  sprang  into  the  center  of 
the  room,  whirling  and  leaping  in  the  Russ- 
kaya  and  then  dropping,  spinning  on  his 
haunches,  a  flying  gray  ball.  It  was  a  reck- 
less thing  to  do  and  in  a  moment  he  was 
smiling  weakly  at  the  nurse  who  put  him  back 
in  bed.  But  for  the  moment  he  had  not  been 
Vereshagin  wounded,  but  Vereshagin  Russian, 
gloriously  alive. 

The  saddest  figure  in  the  hospital  is  "the 
man  who  was."  No  one  knows  what  has 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

happened,  a  shell  bursting  near  him  or  only 
the  strain.  He  is  really  young,  but  nature  has 
slipped  a  cog  somewhere  and  left  him  the 
oldest  thing  in  the  world.  I  never  see  him 
but  that  I  am  reminded  of  that  ancient  man 
of  Dostoevski's  moaning:  "How  old  I  am! 
Oh,  God,  how  old  I  am!"  All  day  long  he  lies 
on  his  back  and  stares  at  the  ceiling,  or  totters 
weakly  about  trying  to  find  his  cot,  with  a 
troubled,  weary  gesture  toward  the  back  of 
his  head.  He  is  utterly  unable  to  talk,  and 
the  instinct  to  feed  seems  to  have  fled,  too. 
Kasha  from  a  metal  spoon  meant  nothing. 
Luckily  some  one  thought  to  put  a  wooden 
spoon  in  his  hand.  For  a  moment  he  held 
it,  while  we  all  watched  breathlessly,  and  then 
the  routine  laid  deep  in  his  nerves  itself — 
instinct  stronger  than  injury  asserted  itself. 
His  hand  slowly  began  to  make  the  journey 
from  bowl  to  mouth.  Opposite  him  lies  Piotr 
Alexandrovitch,  above  whose  cot  hangs  a  copy 
of  a  German  airplane.  He  had  learned  the 
lines  well  enough  those  tortured  days  when 
the  original  hung  over  the  Russian  trenches. 
Piotr  Alexandrovitch  carves  realistic  Sisters 
of  Mercy,  too,  dragged  away  by  Uhlans. 
They  are  not  from  life,  thank  Heaven,  but 

116 


THE   LEE   OF   THE   WAR 

from  a  magazine  sent  by  one  of  the  embassy's 
secretaries. 

Turgenev  spoke  truly  when  he  said  that  the 
Russian  never  fumbles  in  his  pocket  for  a 
word,  but  plucks  it  from  underneath  his 
heart.  Here  is  a  sentence  from  a  letter  which 
I  have  happened  to  come  upon,  written  by 
Vassili  Vassilivitch  to  one  of  the  "little 
mothers"  at  the  hospital: 

Greetings  from  Vassili  Vassilivitch,  dear  little 
mother.  Slavu  Bogu!  Glory  be  to  God  that  you  are 
well.  God  keep  you  in  health,  matushka,  dear  little 
mother.  And  may  God  keep  in  health  all  the  kind 
Americans  who  have  taken  our  bloody  wounds  upon 
their  hearts,  who  gathered  us  into  a  clean  white  nest 
as  God's  little  birdie  gathers  her  young  under  her  wing. 
Gospode  Tebye.  God  be  with  you. 

Imagine  this  from  Tommy  Atkins! 


IX 

A   RUSSIAN  LYRIC 

IN  an  elbow  of  the  sea,  beyond  the  Neva,  lie 
islands  where  summer  Petrogradski  sip 
their  kvass  under  a  green  tracery  of  trees  amid 
the  luminous  white  nights  of  May ;  islands  that 
now  sleep  solitary  under  the  somber  shadows 
of  Bocklin's  Island  of  the  Dead.  It  was 
there  that  Dmitri  Nikolaievitch  and  Natalya 
Nikolaievna  were  giving  a  skating  party  last 
night  for  two  officers  home  from  the  front- 
on eerie  background  for  an  arabesque  of 
gaiety,  an  extravaganza  such  as  I  venture 
could  occur  only  in  the  Russian  capital. 

Recklessly  mad  driving  it  was,  whisking  in 
one  of  those  vanishing  sleighs,  on,  on  through 
the  swift  white  silence,  the  horses'  hoofs  cast- 
ing a  shower  of  sparks  in  the  furtive  white 
evanescence.  The  Russian  love  of  space  and 
silence  with  its  motif  of  furious  speed — I  often 

118 


A   RUSSIAN   LYRIC 

wonder  if  it  does  not  symbolize  to  the  Slav 
the  background  of  eternity,  against  which 
weaves  the  swift  shuttle  of  life — for  its  little 
while. 

Last  night  the  quaint  little  datcha,  ablaze 
with  lights,  beckoned  through  the  falling  snow 
like  an  Enchanted  House  in  the  Woods.  The 
Petrogradski  often  take  these  summer  houses, 
sheltered  under  the  pines,  for  a  night  or  a 
week-end,  and  send  servants  ahead  to  build 
fires  and  fill  the  house  with  flowers.  Last 
night  there  were  fragrant  magnolia,  and 
poinsettia  in  bronze  bowls,  and  dwarfed 
bushes  with  clusters  of  red  berries.  A  band 
of  gipsies  sat  under  the  stairway,  black- 
browed  pirates;  the  firelight  splashed  the 
polished  floor  with  shadows  like  pools  of 
blood  and  shone  on  the  medals  and  uniforms 
of  officers,  and  on  gleaming  hair  and  eyes  and 
shoulders  of  women.  From  a  narrow  supper- 
table,  lighted  with  candles  and  rich  with  old 
silver,  the  Novinsky  servants  in  livery  served 
Russian  delicacies.  Intoxicating,  these  gor- 
geous Russian  interiors,  after  the  eternal 
snow!  And  over  all  and  through  all  stole  the 
gipsy  music,  having  in  its  fire  a  drop  of 
Russian  tenderness — alluring,  ravishing  mu- 

119 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

sic,  singing  of  moonlit  izbas  sleeping  under  the 
birches,  of  Marya  awaiting  her  lover  by  the 
pale  deep  river,  of  sweet  nights  under  the 
stars.  How  fascinatingly  alien  it  was,  like  a 
scene  from  Anna  Kareninal  Without  being 
able  to  define  it,  one  was  aware  of  a  dif- 
ferent background,  other  memories,  other 
origins;  something  enormously  natural  and 
unconscious,  no  premature  sobering  down; 
life  welling  up  from  depths  passionate,  bar- 
baric. 

The  men  were  all  officers,  mighty-bodied 
men  for  the  most  part,  in  high  black  boots  and 
silver  spurs.  I  liked  the  guests  of  honor,  a 
bearded  Muscovite  and  a  tawny,  triangular- 
faced  man  from  Kiev.  These  are  akin  to  the 
men  at  Sebastopol  who  inspired  in  Tolstoi 
a  so  cheerful  conviction  of  the  invincibleness 
of  the  Russian  people.  Inevitably  his  words 
recur  to  one's  memory: 

What  they  are  doing,  they  do  so  simply,  with  so 
little  effort  and  exertion,  that  you  are  convinced  that 
they  can  do  a  hundred  times  more — that  they  can  do 
anything. 

One  looks  at  these  men  with  their  tremen- 
dous elan  and  one  hopes  that  Tolstoi's  tribute 

120 


A    RUSSIAN   LYRIC 

to  the  soldiers  of  Sebastopol  might  be  repeated 
to-day: 

You  understand  that  the  feeling  which  makes  them 
work  is  not  that  feeling  of  pettiness,  ambition,  forget- 
fulness  which  you  have  yourself  experienced,  but  a  dif- 
ferent sentiment,  one  more  powerful — and  this  cause  is 
the  feeling  which  rarely  appears,  of  which  a  Russian  is 
ashamed,  that  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  each  man's 
soul — love  for  his  country. 

Russian  women  are  not  often  beautiful,  to 
my  mind.  Their  mouths,  like  Russian  land- 
scapes, are  too  wide  and  their  features  are 
not  neatly  modeled,  but  there  is  a  fiery  lan- 
guor about  them  which  makes  them  often 
fascinating,  as  was  my  Siberian  Malva.  There 
were  two  Turkestan  princesses  to-night,  with 
bird-like  black  eyes,  hair  like  fine  spun  glass, 
and  agile  movements,  and  a  fair-haired  little 
Polish  countess  who  danced  the  mazurka, 
stamping  her  tiny  feet  with  such  frenzy  that 
she  had  to  be  carried  fainting  to  the  balcony. 
Mile.  Novinska,  in  her  dark  furs,  looked  a 
delicate  Circassian  gipsy.  M.  Novinsky,  more 
nearly  the  debonair  personality  which  made 
him  the  most  desired  dinner-guest  in  Peking 
than  I  had  seen  him  since  we  had  left  the 
Chinese  capital,  was  curiously  elated,  a  fact 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

which  puzzles  me — in  him  whose  every  move- 
ment and  expression  is  significant. 

Like  the  table-linen  at  Harbin,  it  was  in- 
definably Russian — the  background  of  white 
silence,  the  lyric  gaiety,  the  swift,  exhilarating 
speed,  the  skimming  over  the  ice  under  the 
velvety  shadows  of  the  pines,  the  ring  of  the 
skates  in  thin  night  air,  brittle  as  porcelain — 
while  there,  somewhere  in  the  dimness  which 
we  touched,  lay  Kronstadt  and  Riga  and  the 
relentless  German  menace.  And  then  back 
through  the  pines,  across  the  snow,  laced 
delicately  and  pooled  with  shadows — a  plunge 
from  the  ghostliness  into  the  ruddy  firelight, 
to  dance  again  to  the  gipsy  music,  music 
which  sang  not  of  a  pale  and  frozen  north,  but 
of  the  sunny  hills  and  purple  skies  of  Little 
Russia,  of  sapphire  cliffs  and  warm  sweet 
winds,  and  nights  along  the  Black  Sea. 

And  good  talk — exhilaratingly  good  talk! 
The  bearded  officer  from  Moscow  was  my 
supper  partner,  and  we  talked  of  Russia. 
Every  one  talked;  whatever  the  assembly, 
the  end  is  always  the  same  in  Russia — talk. 
It  was  like  a  scene  from  a  Russian  novel; 
words  whirling,  turning,  thickening  like  snow; 
talk  ranging  far  in  philosophy  and  religion, 


A    RUSSIAN   LYRIC 

with  an  amazingly  keen  mental  and  spiritual 
avidity,  a  freer  camaraderie  than  ours  and  a 
different  atmosphere. 

"And  how  do  you  feel  Russia?"  asked  the 
tall  Muscovite,  himself  a  cosmopolitan  of  a 
long  residence  in  India  and  two  years  in  an 
Egyptian  monastery. 

"How  do  I  feel  Russia?"  I  smiled  invol- 
untarily at  the  bearded  man  as  he  put  the 
stupendous  question.  The  thing  I  had  been 
trying  to  formulate  ever  since  I  strayed  into 
its  immensity!  "Perhaps  I  see  it  as  the 
East,  coming  to  it  as  I  do.  '  Nu  kak  more- 
it  is  as  the  sea/  as  Russians  say  of  the  Volga. 
I  cannot  express  it." 

"Certainly,  the  Eastern  gate  is  the  only  one 
through  which  to  enter  Russia,"  rejoined  the 
Muscovite,  a  light  stirring  in  the  depths  of 
his  melancholy  eyes.  "Russia  is  not  a  na- 
tion, but  a  congress  of  peoples — largely  East- 
ern. To  understand  Russia,  one  must  strike 
her  at  the  source  and  follow  her  westward  in 
space,  exploring  her  various  ages — the  Dark 
Ages,  the  Middle  Ages,  the  sixteenth  century, 
the  eighteenth  century,  the  twentieth  century, 
and  that  wonderful  era  of  thought  which  she 
is  projecting,  to-morrow's  century.  No  man 

123 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

can  comprehend  us  who  backs  in  on  us  from 
modern  Europe  and  stares  at  us  like  a  crab." 

"But  further?  How  do  you  feel  the  East 
in  us?"  urged  the  little  man  from  Kiev. 

"Curiously  enough,  my  first  impression 
came  one  night  at  the  opera  in  Paris,"  I  said, 
slowly,  recalling  with  amazing  vividness  the 
memory.  "Ivan  the  Terrible.  Do  you  re- 
member the  serfs  crawling  on  all-fours  under 
the  knout?  It  haunted  me  for  weeks,  that 
cringing  on  the  ground.  In  America,  it 
dropped  out,  but  it  has  shot  back  now, 
in  these  figures  crouching  in  the  cathedrals. 
There  is  a  deep  race-memory  of  fear  in  their 
nerves;  I  see  it  in  the  gestures  of  the  dancing, 
too." 

"It  is  a  part  of  the  carrying  over  of  the 
East  in  us,"  agreed  the  man  from  Kiev,  who 
himself  looked  a  direct  descendant  of  the 
Golden  Horde.  "We  inherit  a  drop  of  fire, 
too,  from  those  Mongolian  horsemen,  which 
we  are  all  proud  to  have  mixed  with  our 
somnolent  Slav  blood.  It  is  an  interesting 
sum  total,  if  one  cares  to  take  his  world 
ethnologically." 

"It  is  China  that  I  see  particularly,"  I 
continued,  a  hundred  images  crowding  my 

124 


A   RUSSIAN   LYRIC 

memory,  as  he  paused,  inquiringly.  "Here  is 
the  same  vigorous  use  of  color  bespeaking  an 
unwearied  imagination.  In  the  Forbidden 
City  at  Peking,  as  at  the  ballet,  I  am  aware  of 
strange  vales  of  the  imagination  and  peaks 
of  fantasie  which  never,  never  in  my  world 
could  have  been. 

"There  is  the  same  lethargy;  here,  too,  as 
in  China,  the  resistance  and  cohesion  of  the 
peasantry;  the  bottomless  rage;  the  'just 
about'  quality  of  China  that  can  never  hang 
a  door  or  run  a  government  with  precision; 
the  mandarinish  wish  for  seclusion;  the  sedu- 
lous mystery  surrounding  the  Czar  as  it  al- 
ways enveloped  the  Son  of  Heaven  and  still 
attends  the  Japanese  Emperor;  'squeeze,' 
that  peculiar  form  of  graft  that  is  as  purely 
of  the  East  as  are  its  fauna  and  flora,  sprung 
largely,  I  presume,  from  the  form  of  gov- 
ernment— " 

"Yes,  that  trait  which  is  ruining  us  in  this 
war  as  it  did  in  the  Napoleonic  campaigns  and 
in  the  Russo-Japanese  war,"  broke  in  the  man 
from  Kiev,  passionately. 

"China  and  Japan  at  first  interested  me 
most,"  I  groped  my  way.  "And  they  must 
always  be  of  enormous  interest,  all  that  toiling, 

125 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

sweating  humanity  welling  out  of  the  earth 
to  flow  a  little  while  above  surface  and  then  to 
disappear  again  in  her  shadowy  caverns — 
however  cities  and  civilizations  may  rise  and 
fall,  a  life  that  goes  on  forever.  And  this 
same  vast  earth-tide  of  life,  which  staggers 
imagination,  Russia  has;  vague,  immense 
power,  barbaric,  potential.  To  pass  from 
Europe  into  Russia  is,  as  some  one  has  said, 
to  pass  from  something  ordered  and  advanced 
to  something  unordered  and  portentous,  to  be 
engulfed  and  swept  away  in  the  tide.  The 
same  portentousness  that  one  senses  in  China 
is  here,  but  here  it  is  something  vastly  nearer, 
breaking  the  flood-gates.  Russia  is  more 
overwhelming  than  the  Far  East.  In  China 
and  Japan  one  stands  above  the  stream  and 
shares  the  life  vicariously,  but  in  Russia  one 
cannot  escape.  Russia  is  of  one's  own  color! 
In  a  word,  Russia  is  to  me  the  most  mysterious, 
the  most  troublous  force  in  the  world,  freighted 
at  present  with  a  conspicuous  significance.  The 
body  of  Asia,  the  thought  of  Europe,  with  this 
one  enormous  advantage  over  Europe:  be- 
cause of  her  immense  naturalness  of  life,  she 
casts  up  from  her  depths  a  product  amaz- 
ingly, cellularly  fresh.  I'  think  it  must  thrill 

126 


A    RUSSIAN   LYRIC 

one,  as  if  a  voice  had  spoken  from  the  void, 
this  volcanic  thought,  these  spiritual  concep- 
tions cast  up  as  if  by  some  primeval  force, 
de  profundis.  Only  one  thing  fascinates  me 
equally,  and  that  is  her  convulsive  contrasts. 
One  can  grow  dizzy  wandering  through  the 
labyrinths  and  wondering  where  one  may  lay 
down  one's  questionings  and  say :  '  This  is  true 
of  Russia.'  America  is  a  melting-pot,  but 
Russia  holds  her  elements  unamalgamated. 
Her  paradoxes  are  unresolved;  to  state  a 
truth  about  her  is  to  be  false  to  her.  There 
is  no  encompassing  her;  she  is  not  only  the 
buffer  between  East  and  West,  but  between 
East  and  Future.  As  you  say,  'She  is  as  the 


sea: 


The  Muscovite,  who  had  been  listening  with 
serious  intent  ness,  took  up  the  theme  where 
I  had  laid  it  down. 

"Russia — the  old  and  weary,  the  melan- 
choly; but  so  young  that  she  seems  but  half 
shaped  from  the  black  earth.  Russia — baring 
a  new  world  of  delicate  psychological  and 
spiritual  truths;  but  dark  medieval  and  bar- 
baric. Russia — innately  democratic  and  in- 
dividualistic; but  ruled  by  despotism.  Rus- 
sia— without  conceit,  even  to  humility;  but 

127 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

with  a  tidal  assurance  of  her  own  destiny. 
Russia — quickly  flaming  up  in  her  emotions; 
but  dying  down  again  to  apathy.  Russia — 
the  tender  lover  of  the  despised  and  rejected 
of  men;  but  shot  through  with  Oriental 
cruelty.  Russia — the  religious.  Russia — the 
unmoral.  Russia — superb,  fatal,  mysterious. 
Russia — also  gentle,  monotonous.  Russia — 
with  a  bewildering,  multitudinous  variety; 
but  as  ununified  as  the  sands  of  the  sea. 

"To  my  mind,  Russia  symbolizes  the  roman- 
tic in  art,"  he  continued,  enlarging  on  his 
subject,  "as  France  symbolizes  the  classic. 
Russia  is  not  to  be  reasoned  about  or  put  into 
bounds.  Russian  natures  are  not  small  na- 
tures, easily  labeled,  but  large  natures,  un- 
coralled  and  uncorrelated.  Russia  of  all  na- 
tions sings  with  color,  like  the  walls  of  some 
old  monastery;  enormously  natural  but  sel- 
dom vulgar.  Of  all  people,  she  shows  the 
least  evidence  of  growing  didactic;  of  all 
people,  the  least  economical  of  her  medium. 
Russia,  multum,  but  not  multum  in  parvo! 
Russia,  the  uttermost  contradiction  of  the 
principle,  maximum  effect  with  minimum 
means;  Russia  in  her  life,  as  in  her  art,  lavish 
and  unrestrained  and  yet  without  coarseness — 

128 


A    RUSSIAN    LYRIC 

living,  as  she  does,  with  a  deep  unconscious- 
ness. That  fine  logic,  which  is  the  glory  of  the 
French,  Russia  has  none  of.  But  her  dis- 
order, is  it  the  'disorder  of  the  forest  and  the 
stars'?  What  will  be  the  fate  of  this  inchoate 
thing  in  the  new  world  which  seems  immi- 
nent, where  nothing  will  be  left  to  chance? 
Or  is  there  a  new  order  and  a  new  symmetry, 
beyond  the  order  and  the  symmetry  of  lesser 
foolish  men,  that  Russia  has  divined?" 

The  tall  Muscovite  had  risen  and  was  stand- 
ing before  the  fire,  his  head  outlined  against  the 
paneling  like  a  young  Turgenev. 

"What  do  you  see  as  Russia's  greatest  gift 
to  the  world?"  I  asked,  as  he  stood  looking 
at  the  fire,  wrapped  in  abstraction. 

"Russia  offers  three  great  gifts,  as  I  see 
them,"  he  answered,  rousing  himself.  "One 
is  pushing  out  the  walls  of  life,  exploring  new 
paths  of  joy  and  pain,  discovering  a  new, 
intense  mental  passion;  secondly,  the  delicate 
psychological  analysis  of  the  soul  voyaging 
about  these  new  paths;  most  rare  of  all,  the 
acceptance  of  pain.  We  are  not  the  only  na- 
tion to  discover  the  beauty  of  pain,  but  it  was 
Dostoevski  who  caught  the  great  salutary 
value  of  pain — suffering  not  alone,  but  suf- 

10  129 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

fering  together.  Do  you  realize  that  Russians 
never  write  romances?  We  have  proven  out- 
worn that  theory  that  it  is  idealists  who,  in 
order  to  escape  the  sordidness  of  the  world, 
write  romances.  We  Russians  are  the  su- 
preme discontents  of  the  world,  but  we  do  not 
write  romance;  we  are  the  ultimate  word  in 
realism.  And  this  because  we  have  pierced 
the  shell  and  have  discovered  the  inner,  fan- 
tastic romance  of  reality,  the  alluring  romance 
of  the  mental  and  spiritual.  It  is  the  romance 
of  which  Hamlet  is  a  typical  hero  and  Dos- 
toevski's Raskolnikoff  another.  Raskolnikoff 
committed  no  crime  of  the  passions,  but  of 
intellectual  curiosity,  a  passionate  mental 
questioning.  He  wished  to  discover  whether 
he  was  a  super-man  with  a  right  to  kill  the 
old  pawnbroker — the  'louse' — as  Napoleon 
murdered  his  thousands,  or  whether  he  was 
only  'vermin/  too.  And  besides  these  ro- 
mances of  the  mental  and  spiritual,  the  ro- 
mance of  pirates  and  dungeons — even  that  ac- 
cidental personal  adventure  which  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  accepts  as  love — is  trivial.  In  these 
features,  the  Russian  must  be  read  geograph- 
ically and  historically.  With  that  great  out- 
lying monotony  of  earth,  neither  sea  nor 


A    RUSSIAN   LYRIC 

mountains,  not  any  chance  under  a  tyrannical 
rule  to  find  his  destiny,  the  Russian  has  been 
driven  in  to  search  his  own  being.  And 
searching  the  human,  he  has  come  upon  a 
mystery  as  disordered  and  as  infinite  as  the 
sands  of  the  sea. 

"And  with  what  marvelous  psychology  he 
has  added  to  our  knowledge  of  that  restless 
creature,  the  soul!  The  delicacy  with  which 
Tolstoi  reads  the  soul  in  terms  of  the  body! 
And  Dostoevski  begins  where  Tolstoi  leaves 
off.  After  Russian  literature,  Anglo-Saxon 
novels  seem  but  attenuated  creations.  Per- 
haps most  precious  of  all  he  has  contributed 
to  life  is  the  recognition  of  pain  as  a  part 
of  destiny  and  that  moral  fervor  to  experi- 
ence it. 

"It  may  be  that  never,  never  will  Russia 
emerge,  not  out  of  the  chaos  of  her  institu- 
tions and  government,  but  out  of  chaotic 
chasms  of  her  own  being.  But  if  ever  she 
does,  she  will  be  the  superbly  great  people  of 
the  earth!  I  have  a  vision  of  the  Slav,  when 
lesser  peoples,  more  easily  catalogued  and 
composed,  are  ended  and  their  cities  dust  and 
their  kings  rest  with  that  other  mighty  war- 
rior, where 

131 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

The  wild  ass  stamps  o'er  his  grave,  but  cannot  break 
his  sleep — 

I  have  a  vision  of  the  Slav,  with  his  roots  as 
deep  as  the  roots  of  Isdragil  itself,  towering 
high  against  the  sky  with  an  incomprehen- 
sibly beautiful  spiritual  burgeoning.  But  who 
can  say — of  Russia?" 

The  tall  Muscovite  spoke  mystically,  like  a 
prophet  of  new  Russia,  and  I  looked  at  this 
superb  man,  accepting  his  destiny  of  pain,  and 
as  I  listened  to  his  rich  voice  chanting  this 
vision  of  Russia  I  saw  again  the  steppe,  the 
gray  gulfs  of  mists,  and  I  heard  the  wind  moan 
in  the  forest ;  and,  again,  like  an  illumination, 
the  words  of  Georg  Brandes  flowed  through 
my  memory. 

Black  land,  fertile  land,  new  land,  grain  land — the 
broadly  constituted,  rich,  warm  nature — the  broad  un- 
limited expanse  which  fills  the  mind  with  melancholy 
and  hope — the  incomprehensible  darkly  mysterious — 
the  womb  of  new  realities  and  new  mysticism — Russia 
and  the  future. 

The  womb  of  new  realities  and  new  mys- 
ticism! 


X 

RUSSIAN  TREACHERY 

PHE  leaves  are  turning  swiftly  these  days. 
1  Yesterday,  Russia  lyric;  to-day,  Russia 
treacherous  and  intriguing!  A  look  in  at 
the  hospital  to  inquire  about  Vereshagin  and 
to  deliver  sweets  resulted  in  staying  for  tea. 
I  can  never  resist  the  white  oil-cloths  and  the 
brown  bath-robes  chanting  a  sonorous  grace 
to  the  decadent  little  ikon  in  the  corner. 
They  say  we  are  breeding  revolutionists  here. 
I  do  not  know.  Fancy  what  decent  food  and 
clean  beds  must  mean  to  these  men,  accus- 
tomed to  cabbage  soup  and  a  handful  of 
straw! 

And  after  the  hospital,  a  walk  home  along 
the  Neva.  These  veiled  days  in  the  north 
are  beginning  to  have  a  wondrous  charm  for 
me.  To-day  the  Neva  stretches  far  out  to 
sea,  a  white  mystery,  only  the  black  hulls 
breaking  it  in  impressionistic  designs.  Peter 

133 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

and  Paul,  sometimes  a  golden  sword,  rises 
to-day  but  a  smoky  pencil  against  the 
sky. 

It  was  in  the  station  at  Irkutsk  that  I  began 
to  realize  the  greatness  of  Russia,  and  to-day 
I  gave  the  "green  bough  of  my  affection"  to 
this  pastel  of  Peter's.  It's  a  Turner,  the 
softest  in  the  world;  a  Japanese  sketch, 
quickly  done,  half  effaced.  On  filmier  days, 
but  a  shadow  city  washed  over  with  white. 
I  have  searched  my  vocabulary  through  and 
yet  I  can  never  express  the  charm  of  its 
spectral  half-tones,  rubbed  together  with  a 
wonderfully  soft  blue  atmosphere,  picked 
out  with  the  charcoal  of  the  park  trees  and 
wanned  with  a  dash  of  buff  in  the  old  Ad- 
miralty. There  is  something  of  the  phantom 
city  about  it,  after  all.  On  a  late  winter 
afternoon  no  other  city,  not  even  London  nor 
Venice,  offers  the  mystery  and  beauty  of 
Petrograd.  I  wonder  that  I  ever  could  have 
missed  it,  low-keyed  though  it  is. 

I  was  just  turning  home  along  the  Admiralty 
gardens  when  I  came  suddenly  face  to  face 
with  M.  Novinsky,  his  compact  figure  and 
dreaming  eyes  pure  Celtic  that  moment  in 
the  mists. 


RUSSIAN   TREACHERY 

"You!"  I  cried,  with  the  joy  of  the  un- 
expected. 

"Yes."  His  eyes,  set  in  Eastern  fashion, 
smiled  engagingly  under  his  tall  sealskin  cap. 
"I  was  just  on  my  way  to  pay  my  compli- 
ments. You  are  looking  distractingly  mys- 
terious to-day,  Amerikanka.  You  Americans 
are  marvelous — your  variety — vsegda  inter- 
eosni — " 

"This  is  serious,  M.  Novinsky,"  I  smiled. 
"Intrigue!  My  annals  are  no  longer  simple." 

"You  have  been  finding  Russia  a  world  for 
Stevenson  or  Sherlock  Holmes?" 

"Yes,"  I  nodded,  importantly.  "I  used  to 
give  the  palm  to  those  sumptuous  caravan- 
saries of  Egypt,  or  to  the  dingy  corridors  of  the 
Wagon  Lits  in  Peking,  but  now  I  yield  both 
to  Petrograd." 

M.  Novinsky  swung  his  stick  at  the  statue 
of  Peter  the  Great,  rearing  above  the  Neva. 

When  he  was  lodged  in  the  blue  velvet  chair 
before  the  fire,  while  Dasha  clattered  the  tea- 
things,  shining  with  joy  at  the  presence  of  the 
beautiful  barin  and  singing  the  distracting 
delights  of  Olya's  white  feet  in  the  river,  I  be- 
gan the  tale.  The  incident  had  really  troubled 
me. 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

"It  came  through  one  of  Olga  Stepanovna's 
clients,  an  American  who  is  here  for  a  gigantic 
order  in  steel.  Olga  Stepanovna  has  trans- 
lated for  him  and  we  have  seen  him  often  at 
the  house.  In  America  he  would  not  stand 
out  from  the  background  of  a  thousand  others, 
an  honest,  self-made  business  man,  but  here 
in  this  old  world  he  looks  like  an  ingenuous 
child.  Olga  Stepanovna  declares  'He  never 
could  have  grown  in  Europe,'  and  it  is  quite 
true.  The  system  of  things  as  they  are  he  has 
absolutely  refused  to  accept.  A  government 
which  pivoted  on  beautiful  ladies  he  would 
have  none  of.  He  had  his  ideas  as  to  the 
conduct  of  business  in  Russia.  He  would 
invite  the  Minister  to  luncheon,  sign  the  con- 
tract with  the  cigars,  and  this  sleepy  old  East 
would  have  learned  something." 

"And  as  usual  he  found  no  royal  road — 
in  fact,  no  road  whatever  to  the  Ministers, 
except  through  the  engineers?"  M.  Novinsky 
lighted  a  cigarette. 

"Exactly.  It  would  have  been  an  excellent 
international  comedy  of  manners  if  it  had  not 
been  so  tragic,  to  watch  the  processional  of 
emotions  sweep  his  countenance — incredulity, 
irritation,  anxiety,  subjection.  He  was  weeks 

136 


RUSSIAN   TREACHERY 

by  the  clock  learning  even  to  get  a  petition 
before  the  Minister. 

"Steamers  have  come  and  steamers  have 
gone  and  still  he  waits  to  hear  the  Govern- 
ment oracle  speak. 

"Fortunately  he  has  a  fancy  for  the  spots 
where  Czars  have  been  murdered,  and  Petro- 
grad  offers  numerous  such  points  for  his  diver- 
tisement.  Whatever  he  had  to  teach  Russia, 
Russia  has  given  him  her  lesson  first — pa- 
tience. 

11  Sometimes  the  engineers  come  with  him  to 
Olga  Stepanovna's  for  conferences,  and  storms 
of  language  sweep  the  house!  The  Yankee 
backs  up  against  the  fireplace,  watching  them 
with  shrewd  eyes.  In  sheer  brains  he  is  more 
than  a  match  for  these  wolves  in  engineer's 
clothing,  but  in  languages  as  uneducated  as  a 
savage.  Of  those  soft,  hissing  sounds  on 
which  hang  his  millions  he  understands  not  a 
syllable.  He  does  not  even  know  French. 
He  must  wait  for  Olga  Stepanovna's  transla- 
tion. I  am  sure  that  his  dying  word  to  the 
world  will  be,  'languages'!" 

"He  might  not  find  another  translator  so 
trustworthy  as  Olga  Stepanovna,  though  he 
'searched  through  this  great  world  with  a 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

candle  by  daylight/"  suggested  M.  Novinsky, 
flicking  his  ash. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  Olga  Stepanovna  is 
the  only  soul  in  Petrograd  he  trusts,"  I  as- 
sented, as  Dasha  installed  the  samovar.  "He 
will  not  stir  an  inch  to  the  Ministers  without 
her,  and,  of  course,  his  helplessness  appeals  to 
all  the  Russian  in  her.  .  .  .  After  months  of 
quibbling,  yesterday  was  set  at  the  Ministry 
for  receiving  the  estimates  from  the  six  com- 
peting firms,  the  representatives  of  which — to 
make  a  perfect  melodrama — all  live  at  the 
Hotel  de  1'Europe.  At  eight  last  night  Sasha 
was  bundled  into  a  shawl  and  despatched  to 
the  hotel  with  the  American's  estimates. 
Olga  Stepanovna  had  dropped  into  her  chair 
when  the  telephone  rang.  The  American! 
The  papers?  Had  Sasha  been  waylaid  and 
robbed  or  was  she  only  gossiping  with  some 
stupid  servant?  Every  quarter-hour  from 
then  until  midnight  the  American  telephoned. 
He  was  very  commendably  controlled,  but  he 
was  angry.  Olga  Stepanovna  walked  the 
floor  and  wrung  her  hands. 

"Nine.  Ten.  At  twelve  Sasha  arrived, 
hands  on  hips,  the  picture  of  health. 

"' Nu,  Sasha,  quick,  where  have  you  been? 
138 


RUSSIAN   TREACHERY 

The  papers?'     Olga  Stepanovna's  impatience 
flared  up. 

ilAi,  barina,  I  was  so  ill,'  Sasha  related, 
glibly. 

'The  papers — quick!'  Olga  Stepanovna's 
eyes  flashed. 

1  'At  the  hotel,  as  you  told  me,'  Sasha  wept, 
stoutly. 

"Little  Dasha,  the  sleepless,  was  asleep. 
How  it  happened  no  one  ever  knew,  but  in  a 
trice  the  drowsy  mite  was  bundled  into  a 
shawl  and  off  through  the  snow  to  verify 
Sasha's  tale.  I  should  like  to  have  witnessed 
the  scene  in  the  lobby  of  the  hotel — Sasha, 
buxom  and  brazen,  questioning  his  Braided 
and  Buttoned  Magnificence,  the  portier;  and 
little  Dasha  peering  out  from  her  shawl, 
probably  too  awed  by  the  portier' s  splendor  to 
hear  a  word  he  was  saying.  The  sleeping  bell- 
boys were  tumbled  out  and  lined  up  for 
Sasha's  inspection.  In  the  end  one  of  them 
remembered.  Sasha  had  delivered  the  papers. 
She  brought  Dasha  home  with  an  izvostchik — 
and,  extravagance  of  extravagances,  two 
horses!  And  to-day  she  has  a  new  collar  and 
a  string  of  beads." 

"And  the  end,  the  blunt  American?"    M. 
139 


MISS  AMERIKANKA 

Novinsky  was  smoking  cigarettes  silently, 
deftly,  his  eyes  on  the  fire. 

"Tales  do  have  a  way  of  rounding  out  to  a 
full  close  in  the  East  and  not  paling  out  half- 
.  way,  as  they  do  at  home.  But  the  end  of  this 
— I  cannot  say.  The  American  came  this 
afternoon,  taciturn  and  gloomy.  The  papers 
had  been  found  at  three  in  the  morning  in  the 
rooms  of  a  pseudo-interpreter.  That  is  all 
we  know.  Of  course  the  terms  had  been  tam- 
pered with,  and  of  course  the  offers  of  the 
firms  were  not  placed  before  the  Ministry  to- 
day. The  American  saw  to  that!  And  now 
the  six-handed  game  may  be  months  in  nar- 
rowing again  to  an  issue.  Nine  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  the  American  had  offered  the  engi- 
neers for  the  order — and  it  was  not  enough!" 

"And  to-day  a  contract  for  forty  millions 
was  signed  at  the  Astoria.  It  means  poods 
of  silver  to  cross  the  palms  of  the  engineers." 
M.  Novinsky  had  sunk  into  abstraction. 

I  do  not  know  how  to  explain  the  subcon- 
scious impulse  that  prompted  my  question. 
"What  news  from  the  front?"  I  asked,  after 
a  pause.  "From  the  General?"  I  am  still 
unable  to  account  for  the  query. 

M.  Novinsky  glanced  at  me  quickly,  his 
140 


RUSSIAN   TREACHERY 

eyes  narrowing  to  two  steel  points.     "Why 
do  you  ask?" 

"I  don't  know,"  I  stammered.  "I  really 
couldn't  say." 

M.  Novinsky  sat  with  pale  lips,  graven  like 
a  statue. 

"I  confess  to  you,"  he  said,  wearily,  "that, 
like  Turgenev,  I  should  often  despair  of  my 
race  were  it  not  for  the  wonderful  Russian 
language.  Think  me  sentimental  if  you  will, 
but  it  is  my  one  consolation.  When  I  con- 
sider this  'great,  mighty,  powerful,  and  free 
Russian  language '  I  cannot  but  believe  that  it 
comes  from  a  great  people.  Even  as  a  boy 
lying  on  my  back  under  the  limes,  making 
friendships  with  the  poets,  I  felt  its  wonder. 
A  language  wrought  in  little  izbas,  in  forests 
and  on  the  steppe,  despised  and  rejected  as 
the  language  of  serfs,  even  unclothed  until 
Pushkin  gave  it  the  exquisite  symbols  of  a 
poet,  yet  fragrant  with  the  deeps  of  human 
life;  the  most  powerful,  the  most  burning, 
the  tenderest  language  of  the  human  soul. 
Surely  such  a  language  could  not  be  conceived 
of  but  by  a  people  sincere,  powerful,  and  as- 
piring." He  spoke  so  reverently  that  I  hes- 
itated to  break  his  mood. 

141 


MISS    AMERIKANKA 

"What  will  come  to  pass,"  I  asked,  softly, 
"when  the  peasants  know  that  they  were  left 
to  face  German  shells  with  bare  hands  while 
those  who  were  responsible  for  them  haggled 
across  Petrograd  counters  for  the  last  penny 
of  booty?" 

" I  do  not  know — I  do  not  know!  Three  of 
your  engineers  I  am  acquainted  with.  Three 
are  Russians — three  German — Russians  from 
the  province  of  Riga.  Enough  of  the  treach- 
ery is  Russian,  but  you  cannot  imagine  the 
complexity  and  penetration  of  German  in- 
trigue." He  was  holding  himself  in  check, 
but  his  eyes  were  as  intensely  blue  as  the 
minaret  of  the  Mohammedan  mosque.  ' '  What 
a  history  Russia's  has  been!  In  the  old  days 
she  was  forced  to  rule  with  a  hand  of  iron  all 
those  outlying  turbulent  tribes  which  meant 
Russia.  That  day  has  passed — partially.  I 
believe  Russia  still  needs  something  of  a  strong 
hand.  There  is  a  chance  now  for  freedom,  too, 
but  Russia  is  caught  in  a  power  a  thousand 
times  more  terrible  than  the  knout  of  Ivan 
Grozni — the  German  bureaucracy.  Always  it 
has  plunged  its  hands  into  the  coffers  of  Rus- 
sia, and  now  it  is  dribbling  the  Russian 
people  through  its  hands  like  water.  You 

142 


RUSSIAN    TREACHERY 

cannot  conceive  what  it  is  to  live  in  a  nation 
of  peasants — a  hundred  and  eighty  million 
peasants.  What  chance  has  such  a  people- 
plastic,  good-natured,  ignorant — against  Teu- 
ton masters?  Treasure  for  German  exploita- 
tion, that  is  what  Germans  have  considered 
Russians — their  proper  gain — 'Russian  pigs/ 
Russia  herself  will  never  be  conquered  from 
the  outside.  To  fight  her  is  to  fight  the  ele- 
ments— winter — the  steppe — Nature  herself. 
Old  amorphous  Russia  can  close  over  her 
enemy  as  a  jungle  closes  over  its  slain.  Would 
that  she  could  engulf  and  strangle  now  every 
German  overseer,  every  German  factory  agent, 
every  German-paid  monk !  It  is  the  first  step 
in  the  righting  of  Russia!" 

M.  Novinsky  was  pacing  between  the  fire 
and  the  window,  his  hair  slightly  disordered — 
a  feature  far  more  alarming  to  me  than  an- 
other man's  complete  disintegration.  The 
tides  had  loosed.  The  serene  man  I  had 
known  had  vanished  and  another  had  sprung 
up — white,  straining,  son  of  an  emotional  race, 
with  a  swift  tongue  and  passionate  movements. 

"A  monstrous  net  of  intrigue — a  net  of 
treachery  that  must  be  broken  if  it  takes 
every  life  in  Russia."  He  stopped  with  a 

143 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

sudden  gesture  at  control  and  gazed  moodily 
out  over  the  hooded  Moika. 

The  little  French  clock  ticked  steadily — 
while  I  sat  in  silence.  A  premonition  chilled 
me  as  I  followed  him,  of  origins  so  different 
from  mine,  but  in  a  thousand  thousand  ways, 
that  mattered  more — my  nearest  of  kin,  East 
or  West — in  all  the  world. 

"The  sucking  and  draining  her  dry  from  the 
inside,  and  flinging  her  up — pulpous  dead 
flesh — Bozhe  moi!" 

The  twilight  deepened  over  the  square 
while  the  lamp-lighter  began  his  rounds  over 
the  Red  Bridge.  And  then,  as  night  began  to 
weave  her  shimmering  web  about  the  branch- 
ing trees  and  the  dim  canal,  he  sat  down  at 
the  piano  and  played  fragments  of  things 
Russian — a  folk-song  from  Glinka;  the  mel- 
ody of  peasants  dancing  in  the  white  night; 
a  moving  harmony  of  Borodin;  a  dissonance 
of  Scriabine — fire  and  flood  and  the  dissolution 
of  the  world;  a  mass  of  Mussorgsky's;  the 
East  Indian's  song,  unearthly  sweet,  from 
Sadko;  fragments  from  Chopin,  a  dirge  of 
Tchaikowsky,  a  largo  of  Rachmaninoff.  I 
had  never  heard  him  play  so  stormily  or  so 
wistfully.  The  Russian  hurricane  seemed 

144 


Everything  that  he  loved  was  singing 
its  swan-song  through  his  fingers 


RUSSIAN   TREACHERY 

breaking  over  him,  and  everything  that  he 
loved  and  everything  that  he  hated  was  sing- 
ing its  swan  song  through  his  fingers.  And, 
as  he  played,  everything  that  I  loved  and 
everything  that  I  hated  and  feared  in  Russia 
crowded  there  in  the  darkness  and  filled  the 
room  with  ominous  shapes.  Bozht  moil  and 
how  much  there  is  in  Russia  to  love  and  hate 
and  fear! 


XI 

THE  HOUSE   UNDER   THE  LIMES 

THE  dvornik  rushes  in;  he  begs  pardon, 
but  the  house  is  on  fire.  It  is  incon- 
veniently cold  and  I  am  thrust  deep  in  an 
arm-chair  and  Balzac,  but  I  slide  out  of  my 
dressing-gown  and  dress  myself  for  the  street ; 
whereupon  in  he  rushes  again,  begs  pardon,  a 
thousand  regrets,  but  the  house  is  not  on  fire. 
These  vacillating  Russians! 

It  leaves  me  in  somewhat  the  same  state  as 
my  presentation.  For  I  have  been  presented. 
No,  not  to  the  Czar,  but  to  Madame  Novinska. 
How  I  quaked  when  the  envelope  came,  de- 
livered by  private  messenger  like  a  command 
from  the  Vatican.  I  felt  that  I  must  rush 
away  to  buy  a  white  veil  and  souvenirs  to  be 
blessed.  If  there  had  been  a  choice,  I  am 
sure  I  should  have  chosen  the  Czar,  for  they 
say  he  always  looks  indifferent,  as  if  he 
wanted  to  go  home  and  play  with  his  children. 

146 


THE   HOUSE   UNDER  THE   LIMES 

M.  Novinsky  came  for  me,  looking  immacu- 
late and  grave.  He  is  always  immaculate 
and  usually  grave,  except  when  he  leans  for- 
ward to  talk  to  one  quite  personally,  and  then 
his  eyes  light  with  an  exquisite  sort  of  com- 
prehension, the  rarest  tribute  and  the  subtlest 
flattery  to  a  woman.  I  had  not  seen  him 
since  we  had  talked  of  the  intrigue  in  Russia, 
and  there  were  a  thousand  things  I  longed  to 
ask.  But  a  pause  seemed  to  have  fallen  upon 
us,  like  a  pause  before  a  sentence,  as  we  rolled 
past  the  old  coroneted  houses  on  the  English 
Quai.  It  was  not  a  giddy  sleigh,  but  one  of 
the  Novinsky  carriages.  I  clutched  at  the 
skirts  of  my  departing  French  verbs  while 
M.  Novinsky  leaned  on  his  stick,  watching 
the  Neva.  The  mother  whom  he  worships 
and  the  withdrawn  life  in  the  old  Faubourg 
St.-Germain  of  the  Russian  capital  I  had 
tried  to  imagine,  but  in  vain.  No  more  could 
I  read  him  to-day — no  trace  of  the  furious 
Tartar,  but  an  enigma,  his  eyes  dark  inter- 
ludes, reflecting  some  inner  drama — I  knew 
not  what. 

The  house,  which  stands  on  a  quiet  side 
street,  planted  with  lime-trees,  is  an  old 
wooden  Russian  house,  built  around  a  court 

H7 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

entered  through  iron  gates  and  one  of  those 
venturesome  vaulted  gateways,  not  magnifi- 
cent, but  with  the  luxury  of  seclusion.  I  am 
sure  it  is  charming  under  the  limes  in  the 
spring.  The  door  was  opened  by  a  man- 
servant in  livery  and  an  irreproachable  air 
of  belonging  to  the  best  family  in  Petrograd. 
If  I  am  not  mistaken,  it  was  Andrei,  who  once 
crawled  into  a  bear's  den  at  the  command  of 
his  small  autocrat,  to  find  himself  confronted 
by  two  fiery  eyes,  and  who  would  have  lost 
his  life  but  for  the  presence  of  a  Cossack; 
the  same  Andrei  who  threw  himself  on  the 
ground  and  wept  passionately  upon  his  mas- 
ter's return,  after  the  manner  of  the  East. 

The  order  of  the  house  I  can  remember  only 
dimly.  There  is  a  broad  stairway,  leading  out 
of  the  entrance  hall  into  a  larger  hall  above 
lined  with  old  portraits,  a  head  of  Pushkin 
and  one  of  Lermontov  and  a  few  ingenuous 
busts  done  by  a  dilettante  of  the  family;  a 
music-room  in  green  and  birch,  deliciously 
recalling  a  birch  forest ;  a  long  white-and-gold 
salon  with  heavy  glass  chandeliers  and  yellow 
damask  curtains ;  glimpses  of  a  smaller  draw- 
ing-room with  eccentric  birds  in  flight  across 
a  Chinese  screen;  and  a  library  of  paneled 

148 


THE  HOUSE  UNDER  THE  LIMES 

Russian  oak.  The  floors  everywhere  are  of 
beautifully  polished  wood,  and  quaint  wooden 
steps,  worn  into  hollows  by  generations  of 
Novinskys,  lead  up  and  down  between  the 
rooms.  Tourists  would  probably  find  it  lack- 
ing in  magnificence,  and  I  would  rather  be 
drawn  and  quartered  than  expose  anything  so 
dim  and  tender  and  fragrant  with  human  asso- 
ciation to  a  vulgar  gaze.  It  is  the  house  in 
which  M.  Novinsky  was  born  and  I  felt  new 
doors  of  personality  opening  as  we  passed 
through  the  mellow  rooms,  with  a  garden 
framed  through  the  French  windows  beyond, 
together  with  a  sudden  quick  gratitude  for 
this  new  admittance. 

Mile.  Novinska  came  to  meet  me  in  her 
manner  which  resembles  floating  rather  than 
walking,  to  say  that  her  mother  was  awaiting 
me  in  one  of  the  small  drawing-rooms.  She 
looked  paler  than  the  first  day  I  saw  her, 
wearing  something  blue,  with  a  narrow  line  of 
uncut  emeralds  about  her  throat  emphasizing 
the  whiteness  of  her  skin.  I  remember  that  a 
woman,  who  had  been  physician  to  the  Em- 
press Dowager  of  China,  once  told  me  that 
she  had  never  once  really  seen  the  apartments 
to  which  she  was  commanded.  Each  time 

149 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

she  struggled  to  look  at  the  appointments  of 
the  palace  in  the  Forbidden  City;  invariably 
she  came  away  without  the  image  of  a  single 
detail.  Once  within  the  Empress  Dowager's 
presence,  it  was  impossible  to  detach  one's 
attention  for  a  moment  from  the  "Old 
Buddha."  I  recall  only  some  small  tapestry 
panels,  the  high-backed  carved  chair  in  which 
Mile.  Novinska  sat — near  me  for  my  res- 
cue, if  I  needed  her! — and  a  high,  wide  fire- 
place. 

Madame  Novinska  has  been  an  invalid  since 
the  tragic  death  of  her  second  son,  and  she 
was  half -reclining  as  I  entered.  A  portrait  of 
her  could  be  painted  only  in  the  grand  manner 
—a  face  of  alabaster,  white  hair  under  the 
ivory  lace  of  her  cap,  and  tense,  dark  eyes, 
thoughtful  like  M.  Novinsky's.  My  first  im- 
pression, among  others  that  crowded  forth, 
was  of  a  woman  who  looked  far  beyond  our 
ken.  The  hand  she  held  out  to  me  was 
slender  and  blue- veined,  and  offered  with  that 
indescribable  mingling  of  graciousness  and  im- 
periousness  which  marks  the  great  lady  to 
whom  homage  is  due  and  rendered.  And, 
joy  of  joys,  she  expressed  her  pleasure  at  see- 
ing me  in  English!  "Ah,  that  is  the  expres- 

150 


THE   HOUSE   UNDER  THE   LIMES 

sion  of  your  eyes!"  she  said,  as  she  turned  me 
to  the  light.  How  amazingly  simple  the  real 
people  are  even  in  this  formal  Old  World! 
It  was  the  atmosphere  of  a  salon,  and  the  deft- 
ness with  which  she  put  the  stranger  at  ease 
was  nothing  less  than  magical.  Among  a 
people  old  and  experienced  in  living,  it  is  not 
the  least  beautiful  of  the  arts. 

I  find  the  Russian  extremely  sensitive  to 
foreign  culture,  and  the  fact  that  his  own  land 
has  so  long  been  counted  a  barbarian  camp 
has  driven  the  aristocrat  abroad  until,  as  the 
fruits  of  his  exile,  he  is  now  the  cosmopolite 
of  the  world.  Madame  Novinska's  knowledge 
of  America  and  her  interest  in  American  af- 
fairs were  amazing.  Helen  Keller,  the  Amer- 
ican war  policy,  Burbank — perhaps  a  word 
only  in  passing,  but  laden  with  suggestion. 
Under  her  skilful  shifting  and  sorting  of 
topics  one  talked  in  spite  of  one's  self,  and  all 
the  time  her  eyes  were  registering  something 
neither  Helen  Keller  nor  Burbank  nor  the 
American  war  policy.  And  yet  I  did  not  feel 
disquieted,  for  she  gave  that  rare  and  generous 
assurance  that  the  best  in  one  would  not  be 
ignored. 

"You  know  our  interest  in  America  is  of 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

long  standing,"  smiled  Mile.  Novinska.  "Ma 
mere  knew  Washington  as  a  girl." 

"Yes,  my  uncle  was  attached  to  the  em- 
bassy at  Washington  and  I  made  a  visit  to 
your  capital  as  a  very  young  girl,"  reminisced 
Madame  Novinska.  "But  I  remember  it  as 
vividly  as  if  it  were  yesterday — the  summer 
nights  on  the  Potomac  and  the  '  darkies '  sing- 
ing below  our  windows  in  the  dusky  night. 
They  are  exceedingly  picturesque,  your  ne- 
groes; I  wonder  if  Americans  know  just  how 
picturesque.  And  the  tall,  clean-shaven  of- 
ficers. I  remember  stealing  down  the  curving 
stairway  to  watch  the  dancers  in  the  ball- 
room. Of  course,  as  a  jeune  file  I  lived  se- 
cluded; Russian  girls  are  younger  than  your 
young  girls.  But  it  was  a  wonderful  memory. 
Can  you  imagine  Turgenev's  Liza  there? 
What  airy  delight  I  took  in  the  barouches — 
and  perhaps  I  might  have  dreamed  a  longer 
time  of  officers  with  Yankee  chins  had  it  not 
been  for  a  young  cousin  in  Russia."  She 
glanced  instinctively  above  the  fireplace  to 
the  portrait  of  an  officer  with  a  slim,  delicately 
poised  head  and  eyes  like  M.  Novinsky's. 

"America  has  much  to  teach  Russia.  In 
spite  of  a  certain  youth  in  our  muscles,  we  are 


THE  HOUSE  UNDER  THE   LIMES 

old  and  weary  in  our  consciousness.  But 
America — America  is  so  healthy,  so  strong! 
She  has  never  had  the  '  courage  of  her  destiny 
dwarfed,'  as  have  we  of  Europe.  She  has 
no  skeletons  of  human  failures  to  strew  the 
path.  What  colossal  naive  unawareness, 
what  faith,  what  enthusiasm!  All  that  Eu- 
rope has  tried  and  found  impossible  she 
achieves  before  she  hears — that  it  is  impossible! 
Russia  has  a  few  ancient  ruins  and  crumbling 
cities  to  remind  her  of  man's  failure,  but  she 
has  many  centuries  of  remembered  chaos 
and  insufficiency.  For  too  many  generations 
life  for  Russia  has  been  to  sit  all  day  in  a 
dressing-gown.  The  educated  man  has  but 
two  openings  for  his  energy — to  manage  his 
estate  and  to  put  on  the  uniform  of  a  tchinovnik 
and  become  another  spider  in  the  web  of 
officialdom.  There  is  no  normal,  unrestricted 
outlet  for  him,  as  there  is  in  America,  because 
everything  is  bound  about  with  Government 
influence.  And  inhibition  prolonged  breeds 
sleep  in  the  blood,  and  a  certain  confused 
futility.  The  most  depressing  feature  of  Rus- 
sian autocracy  has  not  been  the  visible  thwart- 
ing of  individual  life,  but  the  disintegration  of 
a  whole  national  fiber.  Through  disuse,  the 

153 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

Russian  has  lost  his  sinew.  Turgenev  knew. 
See  his  Nezhdanoff  struggling  to  act,  but 
stumbling  and  falling  and  shooting  himself 
under  an  apple-tree.  All  these  centuries  that 
grooves  should  have  been  laid  in  men's  minds, 
there  have  been  none.  When  the  revolution 
comes,  then  we  shall  reap  the  harvest  of  all 
these  trackless  brains.  Russian  women  are 
far  more  practical  and  stronger  than  Russian 
men.  Ah,  it  is  great  good  fortune  to  be  born 
an  American!  I  see  America  in  the  poise  of 
your  head  and  in  your  eyes.  But  it  must  come 
some  day,  our  self-realization.  The  steppe 
has  left  us  a  great  heritage — a  belief  in  the 
brotherhood  of  man  and  the  oneness  of  God,  an 
immense  social  cohesion  and  a  tremendous 
power  and  simplicity." 

Madame  Novinska  spoke  as  one  who  treas- 
ures her  ideals  like  a  dream.  I  feel  it  in  all 
of  them — in  Dmitri  Nikolai vitch,  in  Mile. 
Novinska,  in  Olga  Stepanovna,  in  Agasha, 
gray  and  grumbling  though  she  be — the  wor- 
ship of  the  ideal.  Can  they,  will  they,  I  won- 
der, ever  embody  the  ideal  in  action? 

Tea  was  served  after  half  an  hour  by  a  butler 
descended  from  one  of  the  house-serfs  freed 
by  Madame  Novinska's  father,  an  ancient 


THE  HOUSE  UNDER  THE  LIMES 

servitor  whose  face,  like  that  of  Turgenev's 
Pistchalkin,  "has  set  in  a  sort  of  solemn  jelly 
of  positively  blatant  virtue."  Mile.  Novinska 
herself  poured  from  a  quaint  old  silver  service 
with  a  design  in  bas-relief,  copied  from  an 
ancient  Persian  tomb,  which  had  been  brought 
—the  tea  service,  not  the  tomb — by  another 
diplomatic  ancestor  who  had  seen  long  service 
in  Persia  and  Turkey.  And  the  firelight 
gleamed  on  the  crested  porcelain,  on  the  fine 
damask  inset  with  heavy  Russian  lace,  and  on 
Mile.  Novinska's  thin  hands. 

M.  Novinsky  spoke  little,  but  his  eyes  rested 
adoringly  on  his  mother.  When  I  said  my 
adieus  he  accompanied  me  down  the  winding 
velvet-carpeted  stairway,  past  the  Fragonards, 
into  the  great  stone-floored  hall  below,  where 
the  carriage  waited  inside  the  wrought-iron 
gates.  It  was  indescribably  charming,  this 
bit  of  Old  World  quietude,  the  gabled  roofs 
pointing  against  the  deepening  saffron  sky,  the 
court  filling  with  dusk.  The  lights  were  be- 
ginning to  come  out  and  their  pale  light 
struggled  feebly  with  the  amethyst  shadows, 
splashing  the  court  with  pools  of  black.  An 
entirely  consistent  figure  in  this  mellow  back- 
ground, M.  Novinsky,  slimly  silhouetted 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

against  the  great  doors,  looking  down  at 
me. 

"Thank  you  for  coming,"  he  said. 

"Please  do  not  say  you  thank  me."  There 
was  an  inexplicable  ache  in  my  throat.  "It 
has  been  a  day  I  shall  remember."  I  dared 
not  look  up  at  the  face  in  the  dusk,  lean  and 
delicate  with  thought  and  feeling. 

"Pardon,  Amerikanka,  but  you  have  been 
a  deep  pleasure  to  madame,  ma  mere."  His 
voice  was  low,  strongly  Slavic  in  accent.  ' '  These 
are  darker  days  in  Russia,  perhaps,  than  you 
know.  You  have  been  a  thread  of  gold  shot 
across  our  somber  background.  And  there  is 
also  another  reason."  The  eyes,  almost  elec- 
tric blue  even  in  the  twilight,  gazed  at  me 
with  a  new,  strange  earnestness.  "I  shall  be 
leaving  Petrograd — and  I  wanted  to  see  you 
here — in  this  old  house." 


XII 

A  FACE  AT  THE   BALLET* 

I  HAVE  been  sitting  by  the  French  window, 
watching  the  cathedral  lose  itself  in  the 
dusk.  Twilight  is  the  enchanted  hour  in  any 
land.  How  many  other  images  surge  through 
my  mind  and  struggle  for  place!  It  is  the 
Japanese  Inland  Sea;  twisted  islands  sharpen 
from  the  sea-green  mists,  beckon  and  vanish 
again  —  phantoms;  from  the  shore,  lights 
twinkle  under  thatched  roofs,  and  quaint 
silhouettes  move  against  paper  screens.  In 
Kobe  and  Nagasaki  jagged  peaks,  patterned 
like  a  willow-plate,  cut  sharply  against  the 
sky;  below  in  the  harbor,  lateen-sailed  junks 
home-bound  pole  quietly  in  among  freighters 
and  steamers  and  yachts  and  all  the  unas- 
sorted craft  that  make  up  a  harbor  in  the 
East.  There  are  other  images:  the  bund  at 
Shanghai — Shanghai,  that  brilliant  hybrid  of 
East  and  West,  pouring  along  its  gay  ante- 

157 


MISS    AMERIKANKA 

dinner  throng.  Clean,  white-flanneled  young 
Englishmen;  pale,  laborious  Germans;  Sikhs 
with  immobile  eyes,  in  red  turbans  and  khaki 
uniforms;  natives  in  delicate  blue  and  laven- 
der silks;  rickshas  beginning  to  light  their 
long  Chinese  lanterns ;  ladies  in  carriages  with 
tasseled  mafus,  and  runners  that  scatter  the 
crowds — all  in  a  sensuous,  heated  atmosphere 
against  the  darkening  blue  of  the  Hwangho. 
Egypt  unrolls  like  a  frieze:  black  palms  fring- 
ing the  cooling  sands  of  the  Nile;  the  thin  blue 
smoke  of  the  evening  meal  curling  upward  from 
a  mud-walled  Arab  village  to  an  orange  sky; 
strings  of  home-coming  camels;  women  with 
water-pots,  majestic  creatures.  Over  all  the 
tented  silky  sky  and  the  darkling  river  weav- 
ing the  shifting  tints  into  a  rich  brocade.  .  .  . 
Memories,  too,  of  Peking:  monster  gates  tow- 
ering above  the  city,  freighted  with  the 
mystery  of  North  China,  dwarfing  even  the 
camel-caravans  that  emerge  from  their  shad- 
ows; brocaded  gentlemen  airing  their  birds 
on  the  wall  in  the  cool  of  the  evening;  the 
faint,  sweet  plaint  of  the  samisen  from  the 
lantern-lighted  city  below.  .  .  .  Memories  all 
of  shimmering  sand  and  heat  and  tumultuous 
life.  How  incredibly  different  those  other 

158 


A. FACE   AT   THE    BALLET 

twilights  from  this  spacious  gray  light  of  the 
North !  Is  this  happiness,  I  wonder,  that  one 
feels  in  Russia?  It  is  not  a  land  to  which  one 
turns  with  song  and  laughter,  Russia.  It  is 
like  the  face  of  Dus6 — a  thing  of  shadows, 
weary,  wistful,  poignant.  But  I  would  not 
surrender  it,  though  it  is  pain  and  struggle; 
there  is  something  more  mysterious  seeking  to 
break  through  here  than  anywhere  else  in  the 
world.  In  Russia  I  have  ceased  to  be  what  I 
fear  I  have  been — a  person  with  an  interest 
in  the  graceful  beauty  of  life — and  I  am  de- 
veloping— I  hope! — a  soul.  But  it  has  been 
M.  Novinsky's  Russia,  seen  through  his  inter- 
pretation, through  the  medium  of  his  per- 
sonality. What  will  it  be  without  my  ex- 
quisite ambassador — my  friend? 

MADEMOISELLE, — Lend  us  your  West-world  eyes  to- 
morrow night  for  the  ballet.  It  may  be  my  last  this 
season  and  I  want  to  see  it  with  the  old  illusion. 

Yours  faithfully, 

DMITRI  NOVINSKY. 

"Olga  Stepanovna,"  I  cried,  when  my  host- 
ess had  joined  the  samovar,  singing  its  little 
folk-song,  "I  shall  a-balleting  go!" 

"Ballet!"     Olga   Stepanovna  pronounced 

12  159 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

the  word  Russian  fashion  with  a  "t,"  while 
the  samovar  burbled  with  excitement.  "Bal- 
let— nu,  golubtchik,  as  I  have  explained  to  you, 
ballet  is  subsidized  by  the  Crown,  tickets  are 
sold  by  abonnement  and  boxes  are  inherited  with 
the  estate  and  family  jewels.  It  13  difficult." 

I  put  the  note  written  in  M.  Novinsky's 
neat  script  into  her  hands. 

"Ah,  with  the  Novinskys!  Mozhno.  The 
Novinsky  box  has  been  in  the  family  three 
generations;  Madame  Novinska  had  it  from 
her  father,  old  Prince  Korovotsky.  There  is 
no  difficulty.  It  is  the  fashion  now  to  send 
one's  box  to  the  officers  on  leave  and  there 
will  be  a  gay  show  of  color.  And  Sunday 
night  wear  your  prettiest  frock,  dushenka." 

"Cricket  for  the  Britisher  and  ballet  for 
the  Russian,"  I  heard  Olga  Stepanovna's 
voice  rippling  on.  While  my  eyes  followed  the 
last  phrase  again,  "my  last  this  season,"  Olga 
Stepanovna  chattered  on,  volubly,  screening 
me  gratefully.  "I  had  an  aunt  in  Little  Rus- 
sia who  had  never  seen  ballet  until  she  came 
to  Petrograd  last  winter.  If  you  could  have 
beheld  her  radiance!  Sixty,  the  mother  of 
many  sons  and  the  child  of  many  sorrows,  but 
ah,  the  taste  was  in  her!  I  heard  strange 

160 


A    FACE   AT   THE    BALLET 

sounds  in  her  rooms  at  two  in  the  morning, 
after  the  ballet;  I  pulled  on  a  dressing-gown 
and  slipped  down  the  corridor.  And  there 
stood  my  venerable  aunt  before  a  mirror,  gray 
and  ponderous — so,  Amerikanka!  arrayed  in 
a  short  petticoat,  rising  on  her  toes,  pirouet- 
ting, chasseing  and  trying  all  the  floatings  of 
the  gauzy  ballerinas.  She  blushed  a  little 
when  I  came  in.  'Don't  take  me  for  a  fool, 
little  Olga,'  she  sighed.  'It  was  so  beauti- 
ful!' And  do  you  know,  milaya,  I  did  not 
take  her  for  a  fool." 

I  slipped  the  note  into  its  sheath.  I  knew 
that  I  had  not  yet  pressed  against  the  coldest 
terror  of  pain,  and  I  longed  desperately  for 
something  warm  and  human. 

"Ah,  milaya,  you  can  never  comprehend 
the  ballet."  My  godmother  more  than  half 
guessed,  I  think,  as  she  ran  on:  "In  your 
happy  America,  to  dance  is  merely  to  seek 
pleasure  and,  therefore,  it  means  nothing. 
But  in  Russia,  to  dance  is  to  rebel — to  rebel 
against  tyranny,  against  the  futility  of  life. 
Do  you  not  hear  it  in  our  music,  the  moaning  of 
the  wind  in  the  forest,  the  lonely  gray  of  the 
steppe,  the  terror  of  night,  the  despair?  Ah, 
me!  you  do  not  know  the  steppe  nor  the  mad 

161 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

carousals  and  debauch  with  which  those 
shaggy  giants  there  seek  to  shake  it  off. 
Wait  until  you  hear  the  songs  on  the  Volga! 
How  they  sound  across  the  water  from  the 
rafts  at  night!  They  know  and  they  are 
seeking  to  forget,  those  river  boatmen — " 

Little  Dasha  had  donned  a  new  collar  and 
a  string  of  red  beads,  and  her  cheeks  and  eyes 
shone  as  if  the  pumpkin  coach  and  the  mice 
footmen  stood  outside  the  door.  No  dreary 
hours  for  little  Dasha  these  days,  with  Prince 
Charming  at  the  door,  nor  for  Agasha  Feo- 
dorovna.  Agasha  summoned  me  a  score  of 
times  to  see  my  frock  and  herself  set  my  fur 
galoshes  before  the  fire.  This  Russian  kind- 
ness— it  wraps  one  like  a  Scotch  plaidie  in  a 
cauld,  cauld  blast. 

Perhaps  to  American  eyes  the  Maryinsky 
Theater  might  be  a  bit  lack-luster,  but  I  like 
the  sleighs  fleeing  past  us  in  the  white  dis- 
tance of  the  Moika,  to  appear  again  over  the 
arched  bridges  of  the  river;  the  purple  dome 
of  sky,  threaded  with  iridescent  mists,  bulging 
izvostchiks,  dashing  across  the  mammoth 
square,  discharging  rainbow  cargoes  from 
furry  depths  and  making  way  sharply  for  the 
next  bearded  Jehu. 


"It  isn't  as  brilliant  as  London  or  Paris 
theater-going,"  said  M.  Novinsky,  gazing  out 
of  the  carriage  window  at  the  white  ribbon  of 
avenue. 

"But  I  like  it — the  northness  and  scintilla- 
tion. It's  more  hand-made.  It's  Russian!" 

"You  are  beginning  to  feel  the  charm  of 
Russia?"  M.  Novinsky 's  eyes  turned  on  me 
with  serious  intentness. 

I  catch  the  slantwise  line  of  his  profile, 
nervously  incisive  under  the  flickering  lights 
of  the  carriage,  his  expressive  smile,  medita- 
tive eyes,  eyes  that  can  narrow  and  burn. 
A  mondain,  yes — but  sincere,  objective;  a 
beautiful,  natural  human  being.  The  carriage 
is  pervaded  with  the  faint  fragrance  of  Rus- 
sian cigarettes,  so  entangled  for  me  with 
other  memories — memories  of  Peking,  of  black 
nights  on  the  steppe  and  filmy  days  along  the 
Neva — so  much  of  joy  and  pain  and  struggle 
and  so  much  of  exquisite  content.  We  are 
passing  the  Yusuppoff  Palace.  I  turn  my 
eyes  away  for  refuge  in  the  mystery  of  the 
great  iron  gates.  Suddenly  I  realize — this  is 
what  Life,  with  all  her  shifting  and  selecting 
and  wearing-down  process,  ought  to  produce. 
Never  before  had  I  so  felt  the  appeal  of  beauty 

163 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

in  a  human  being.  And  now  all  this  fineness 
to  be  lost  in  the  gaping  void  of  Russia's 
destiny?  One  topic  lies,  a  dead  thing,  veiled, 
between  us  to-night  when  we  are  seeing  ballet 
with  the  old  illusion. 

"Russia,  like  China,  is  a  bit  shabby,  but 
she  has  the  air  of  the  grand  dame."  That  is 
all  I  find  courage  to  say. 

Below  the  box  bloomed  a  painter's  riot  of 
color:  silver-daggered  Circassians,  like  kings 
incognito;  handsome  young  Hussars  in  blue 
or  crimson  trousers;  Robin  Hood  colonels  in 
green.  Diaghileff  may  bring  ballet  to  Amer- 
ica, but  not  even  he  can  carry  all  this  con- 
tingent color.  Surely,  ballet  blossoms  its  su- 
premely bizarre  and  beautiful  flower  only  here 
on  Russian  soil. 

It  was  not  a  large  party;  two  fair-haired 
young  officers  home  from  the  trenches,  a 
lovely  Titian-haired  friend  of  Natalya  Niko- 
laievna's,  and  a  miniature  aunt  of  the  Novin- 
skys  in  black  velvet  and  diamonds. 

"Nu,  Amerikanka,"  said  Mile.  Novinska, 
mistily  pale  in  her  black  tulle,  the  row  of  un- 
cut emeralds  emphasizing  the  pallor  of  her  skin 
and  the  lurking  shadow  of  her  eyes,  as  she  held 
out  her  hand  with  a  smile  always  a  little  dis- 

164 


A    FACE   AT   THE    BALLET 

trait.  "  It  is  good  to  have  you  here.  This  is 
a  quaint  old  Russian  folk- tale  that  Dmitri  and 
I  used  to  watch  as  children  from  this  very  box 
with  our  grandmother,  and  we  have  always 
loved  the  little  awkward  tow-headed  prince, 
fumbling  his  cap  before  the  court  beauties  he 
had  evoked,  and  then  setting  off  with  the 
little  Humpbacked  Horse,  for  the  One  Most 
Beautiful  of  All."  Her  eyes  lingered  for  a 
moment  on  the  brother  whom  she  resembles 
as  one  thoroughbred  borzoi  resembles  another. 

"And  why  do  they  all  stand?"  I  begged, 
gazing  at  the  spectrum  of  color  below.  When 
one  is  American  one  is  expected  to  be  wide- 
eyed  and  breathless;  it  is  one  of  the  privileges. 
"Why  do  all  those  officers  magnifique  stand?" 

"Since  the  Czar's  box  is  here,  they  may  be 
in  the  presence  of  his  Majesty,"  explained  the 
young  officer.  "And  he  is  present  sometimes 
with  the  little  grand  duchesses  and  the  Em- 
press Dowager.  The  Empress  never  comes; 
she  is  melancholy."  He  added  the  latter  under 
his  breath  with  an  enigmatic  glance  at  me. 

"And  those  lovely  Andalusians  with  the 
mobile  eyes  and  sloping  shoulders?"  I  breathed 
from  the  edge  of  the  box. 

"Armenians  from  Baku;  after  the  Circas- 
165 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

sians,  the  most  beautiful  women  in  Europe," 
M.  Novinsky  answered,  his  eyes  following  the 
two  I  had  indicated,  with  the  same  connois- 
seur's air  he  would  have  shown  examining 
a  jade  or  Meissen. 

They  were  constantly  dropping  into  the  box, 
between  acts,  these  men  from  the  front.  One 
could  almost  smell  the  fresh  hardness  of  the 
camp  about  them.  And  the  lusty  delight  of 
them  to  be  again  in  the  capital,  and  the  pot- 
pourri of  tongues!  French,  English,  Russian — 
one  never  knew  which  the  arrival  would 
speak.  The  last  news  from  the  front,  the 
freshest  bit  of  court  gossip,  and  the  newest 
military  scandal.  Bagdad  and  Babel  in  one; 
life  vast,  quivering,  momentous,  with  always 
the  sense  of  the  snows  beyond  there  some- 
where— the  sound  of  the  guns  and  the  fate  of 
the  world  hanging  in  the  uncleared  smoke — 
brilliant,  dangerous,  terrible. 

It  would  have  been  intoxicating  if  for  one 
moment  one  could  have  forgotten.  I  glanced 
at  Mile.  Novinska.  I  wondered  if  she  knew. 

"Do  you  feel  a  peculiar  intensity  here?"  a 
young  captain  of  the  Pavolski  regiment — the 
regiment  that  four  times  has  gone  out  and  four 
times  has  not  come  back — asked  me.  "It  is 

166 


A    FACE   AT   THE    BALLET 

not  simply  the  joy  of  returning.  That  is  enough 
for  your  Englishman,  but  for  the  Russian 
there  is  another  appeal — the  contrast  of  the 
snowy  dugouts,  the  terrible  and  violent,  with 
this  heaped  and  perfumed  luxury;  it  is  that 
the  Russian  loves.  It  stirs  in  him  a  sense  of 
the  lyric,  the  extraordinaire"  And  looking 
into  his  susceptible  Slavic  eyes,  I  knew  that  it 
was  true.  And  I  remembered  nights  on  the 
steppe  and  skating  under  the  pines. 

It  was  the  dowager  who  really  informed  me 
as  to  the  ballet.  What  stores  of  knowledge 
I  should  have  had,  could  I  have  listened  to  her ! 
To  her  lively  questions  I  answered  that  I 
spoke  Russian  little  and  badly. 

"Neetchevo,"  she  returned,  briskly.  "Keep 
trying!  English  and  American  speak  every- 
thing badly.  Do  you  like  the  ballet?  Yes? 
Ah,  but  you  cannot  understand  it!  No  one 
can  comprehend  who  is  not  Russian.  It  is 
racial,  this  passion  for  the  acme  of  the  sophis- 
ticated, combined  with  barbaric  strength. 
Cest  absolument  Slave.  And  do  you  realize, 
mademoiselle,  the  Russian,  fickle  to  his  other 
mundane  loves,  is  amazingly  faithful  to  his 
ballet  favorites?  That  is  because  we  worship 
art  and  not  personalities.  Have  you  seen 

167 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

Karsavina,  the  beautiful,  the  prima  ballerina 
of  Petrograd  as  Gelza  is  of  Moscow?  But 
you  should  see  the  house  when  tiny  Prebyshen- 
skaya,  the  grandmother  of  the  ballet,  flits 
across  the  stage.  Pavlova?  Konyechno.  But 
we  seldom  see  her.  She  returns  only  to  put 
an  edge  to  her  dancing  and  keep  her  place  on 
the  pension-roll.  Here  she  is  but  one  and 
interests  us  largely  because  of  her  vogue  with 
you.  It  is  Kseshenska,  the  court  favorite  of 
twenty  years  ago,  now  the  wife  of  a  grand  duke 
and  mother  of  a  tall  son,  who  is  the  one  great 
ballerina  of  all  Russia.  It  is  Kseshenska  who 
sets  all  the  ballet  standards.  It  is  Kseshenska 
who  has  the  most  beautiful  jewels  in  Russia. 
Elle  est  merveilleuse!  And  she  has  cost  the 
peasant  more  than  one  battle-ship!" 

It  was  pleasant  in  the  shadows  of  the  ca- 
pacious box,  Mile.  Novinska's  profile  gleaming 
palely  in  the  half-light  and  the  two  young 
officers  lost  in  the  flying  harmonies.  If  I 
could  have  but  forgotten!  With  most  of  the 
officers  I  feel  that  the  ballet  is  caviare  for 
capricious  appetites,  but  in  M.  Novinsky  it 
appeals  to  deeper  and  more  subtle  sensibilities. 
I  could  not  see  him,  but  I  was  aware  of  him 
with  his  arms  folded,  lost  in  the  poesy  of  the 

168 


A    FACE   AT   THE    BALLET 

rich  ensemble,  sunk  deep  in  the  melancholy  of 
the  Slav,  which  is  not  a  trivial  melancholy  of 
the  despair,  but  of  man's  whole  impotence 
and  impermanence.  How  pleasant  it  was, 
how  sweet  there  in  the  dim  box  like  a  hanging 
balcony  above  the  garden  of  color!  And 
over  it  all  hovered  the  Rimsky-Korsakov 
music,  an  accompaniment  to  one's  dream, 
languidly  rising,  touching  everything  mysteri- 
ous and  sacred,  loosing  everything  barbaric 
in  one. 

"Do  you  like  it?"  M.  Novinsky  leaned 
forward  with  his  head  on  his  hand. 

"Yes,"  I  confessed.  "But  I  feel  like  a 
heathen  at  prayers,  when  to  you  each  flying 
posture  of  the  dancer  is  as  distinctive  as  the 
tone  of  Elman  or  Kubelik." 

"It  brings  a  thousand  other  images  of  liquid 
movement.  I  see  again  horsemen  silhouetted 
against  the  horizon — the  bronze  bodies  of 
Chinese  coolies — boats  clustering  down  the 
Nile.  Russian  literature,  I  confess,  depresses 
me  sometimes;  Russian  dancing  and  music, 
never!  They  have  caught  all  the  color  of  the 
Slav  and  shot  a  new  pattern  through  the  old 
web  of  life." 

I  was  about  to  reply  to  this  sensitive  Slav, 
169 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

who  runs  swiftly  before  me  in  every  appercep- 
tion of  beauty,  when  my  eye  fell  upon  two 
figures  who  had  come  in  and  were  standing  in 
one  of  the  boxes  opposite,  a  general  with  a 
sharp  mustache  and  many  decorations,  and  a 
junior  staff-officer,  noticeable  for  his  carriage. 
The  words  ebbed  away  from  me.  Could  it  be? 
I  stared  again.  And  the  younger  officer,  he 
of  the  smoky-blue  eyes!  The  younger  man 
was  clean-shaven  now,  but  the  peculiar  car- 
riage! 

"Dmitri  Nikolaievitch" — one  instinctively 
lowers  one's  voice  in  Russia — "in  the  opposite 
box — the  general  and  the  other — the  young 
officer—" 

I  had  expected  to  see  M.  Novinsky  startled, 
but  he  continued  to  follow  his  program. 
"Yes,"  he  assented,  without  lifting  his  eyes 
in  the  direction  in  which  I  was  staring.  "It 
is — his  Excellency."  His  voice  had  a  curi- 
ously hard  edge  which  I  had  never  heard  be- 
fore. "And  the  other — 'the  servant.'  It  is 
impossible  to  explain  now,  mademoiselle,  but 
if  I  may  ask  you  to  trust  me — I  beg  a  thousand 
pardons — you  will  not  address  the  General?" 


XIII 

MISS  AMERIKANKA   KNOWS 

I  WAS  just  entering  Kazan  Cathedral  this 
afternoon,  to  burn  a  taper  against  these 
troublous  times,  when  I  met  M.  Novinsky 
emerging  abstractedly — like  a  figure  in  a 
dream.  I  could  feel  my  face  flush  with  joy, 
and  then  an  icy  gray  flood  poured  through 
me.  I  had  seen  that  look  in  men's  faces  and 
I  knew.  I  knew.  I  knew. 

"I  have  been  burning  a  candle  to  my  patron 
saint,"  M.  Novinsky  said,  his  smile  stealing 
through  me  like  healing.  "  Shall  we  turn  back 
into  the  cathedral  for  a  moment?  I  was  just 
on  my  way  to  you." 

I  glanced  again  at  his  pale,  grave  face  as  we 
entered  the  shadowy  jeweled  dusk  and  found 
a  niche  away  from  the  throng  that  ebbed  and 
flowed  through  the  cathedral.  /  knew.  There 
was  no  need  for  him  to  speak,  for  his  words 

171 


MISS    AMERIKANKA 

could  contain  little  that  I  had  not  already 
divined. 

"It  is  true  as  you  have  surmised,"  he  said, 
as  calmly  as  if  he  discussed  a  dinner  invitation. 
"I  am  going  to  the  front,  not  in  the  usual  way, 
but  on — a  special  mission.  It  is  of  the  utmost 
importance.  The  nature  of  it  must  remain  un- 
known even  to  my  sister  and — I  am  sorry — to 
you,  Amerikanka.  I  wanted  to  tell  you — be- 
cause there  are  not  many  chances  that  I  shall 
return.  Neetchevo.  That  is  of  trifling  impor- 
tance. If  I  accomplish  my  end,  it  will  be  an 
immense  coup  d'etat  for  Russia.  But  I  could  not 
go — without  thanking  you — for  an  experience 
completely  satisfying — such  as  comes  to  but  few 
men — and  never  .  .  .  twice  in  a  lifetime." 

He  spoke  slightly  formally,  as  if  he  had 
thought  it  all  out  carefully,  controlled.  His 
voice,  strongly  Slavic,  died  away  as  the  music 
poured  about  us  in  a  whirling  flood.  It  was 
Rachmaninoff's  Mass  for  the  Dead.  ...  I 
leaned  against  the  foot  of  an  ikon,  struggling 
with  the  desolate  gray  sea  which  threatened 
to  engulf  me,  while  the  music  languished  and 
moaned  among  the  somber  spaces. 

"Shto  dyelatch?"  M.  Novinsky  asked,  in  his 
quiet,  un-English  voice,  looking  down  at  me 

172 


MISS   AMERIKANKA    KNOWS 

while  the  light  from  silver  candelabra  fell  on 
his  smooth,  dark  head  and  the  music  ebbed 
about  the  shadowy  pillars.  "It  is  the  com- 
mon fate  and  the  common  sacrifice.  But  it  is 
not  pain.  I  had  feared  to  lose  my  chance,  and 
now  it  has  come — the  opportunity  to  serve 
Russia.  Except  for — my  mother,  I  am  in- 
describably happy.  It  is  magnificent  har- 
mony— to  be  caught  up  in  the  whole,  thrown 
into  the  current,  living  not  one,  but  a  hun- 
dred million  lives.  This  is  what  life  ought 
to  mean — concerted  effort."  His  eyes  bore 
the  same  quiet  mysticism  they  had  shown 
that  night  as  we  watched  the  cathedral  in 
the  oncoming  dusk,  and  a  certain  luminous 
release  with  which  sacrifice  sets  her  men 
apart. 

I  found  my  voice  coming  as  from  a  dim  dis- 
tance. "I  know — I  can  guess."  I  faltered. 
"But  not  our" —  I  could  not  bring  myself  to 
frame  the  General's  name. 

"I  did  not  know  you  were  aware."  M. 
Novinsky  turned  a  penetrating  glance  on  me. 
"Yes" — he  dropped  down  on  a  stone  bench 
in  the  niche,  resting  his  head  on  his  hands— 
"he,  too.  It  is  all  part  of  an  enormous  plot. 
I  have  known  ever  since  I  came  to  Petrograd. 

173 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

Three  factories  have  gone  over  into  German 
hands — and  without  ammunition  it  means 
slaughter  for  the  men  at  the  front.  Yes,  he, 
too.  That  is  why  I  asked  you  not  to  see  him 
last  night  at  the  opera.  I  wanted  to  spare  you 
that  memory.  *  I  could  not  bear — in  after 
years — "  The  plastic  figure  with  his  back 
bowed  in  the  half-light  did  not  finish,  but  I 
knew. 

The  chant  had  ebbed  and  died  and  the  glory 
of  the  priestly  vestments  had  passed  into 
the  tenebrous  chancel.  An  old  peasant  bun- 
dle of  rags  lay  at  the  foot  of  an  ikon,  clasp- 
ing the  feet  of  the  Christ.  We  came  slowly 
out  and  stood  for  a  moment  together  in  the 
shadows,  M.  Novinsky  with  his  arms  folded, 
I  struggling  with  my  loneliness,  like  figures  in 
some  ancient  Greek  drama  looking  up  at  the 
giant  pillars  dwarfing  our  two  pigmy  figures 
with  pity  and  fear.  Above  shone  the  stars  as 
they  had  shone  in  Siberia — as  they  shone  on 
my  West  there  across  the  sea — as  they  shone 
now  on  those  snow-dunes  there  in  the  fantastic 
white  night. 

Olga  Stepanovna  has  taken  me  with  her 
many  times  these  days,  silently  protecting,  as 


MISS   AMERIKANKA    KNOWS 

best  she  may,  this  godchild  whose  feet  are 
set  in  paths  of  pain. 

One  of  Olga  Stepanovna's  friends  is  a  queen 
and  we  have  been  shopping  to-day  for  church 
brocades  with  which  to  bind  a  volume  of 
poems  for  her  Royal  Highness.  The  bro- 
cades are  rarely  beautiful,  richer  than  the 
brocades  of  China  or  Japan,  but  difficult  to 
buy.  The  Japanese  has  no  hesitation  in  selling 
his  sacramental  robes,  but  the  Russian  neither 
wears  the  cross  as  a  decoration  nor  traffics  in 
his  priestly  vestments.  Perhaps  we  search 
for  laces  among  the  peasant  craft-shops  while 
the  old  woman  runs  on  about  the  famine  of 
1905  and  the  great  Tolstoi's  aiding  the  peas- 
ants, helping  them  to  pick  up  again  the  old 
folk-patterns  and  to  improve  their  work.  Or 
perhaps  we  take  a  swift  sleigh  to  the  islands 
beyond  the  Neva,  where  at  a  little  cafe  Olga 
Stepanovna  orders  a  luncheon  for  me,  purely 
Russian.  There  are  little  meat  pies  and  a  soup 
in  each  plate  of  which  floats  a  hard-boiled 
egg — whether  for  refreshment  or  divertise- 
ment  I  never  discovered.  But  it  is  of  no  use. 
It  is  as  Dmitri  Nikolaivitch's  city  I  have  seen 
Petrograd  and  it  will  always  be  his  city.  Yes- 
terday he  was;  to-day  he  is  not;  to-morrow — ? 
13  175 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

It's  snowing  in  Petrograd  to-day.  A  Rus- 
sian snow.  There  has  been  a  victory,  too. 
One  sentence  by  wireless,  and  the  city  is  flung 
into  pseans  of  rejoicing.  If  you  wish  Russian 
opera,  here  it  is — the  opening  chorus.  The 
streets  are  thronged  with  multitudes  tramping 
bareheaded  through  the  snow,  the  ikons  borne 
aloft  on  their  shoulders,  Slavic  fire  kindling 
through  Slavic  languor;  and  as  they  tramp 
they  sing  strange  Slavic  rhythms.  Tramp, 
tramp — the  cathedral  squares  are  filling,  and 
the  place  before  the  Winter  Palace  is  lit  with 
impassioned  faces.  The  Slavic  melody  breaks 
into  wilder,  stronger  rhythms,  and  above  all 
float  the  Double  Eagles  of  Russia  in  the 
whirling,  whitening  snow.  How  quickly  they 
flare  up,  these  children  of  Russia,  and  as 
swiftly  die  down.  You  ask  whether  Russians 
love  Russia.  The  reverential  babas  and  iz- 
vostchiks  answer  to-day.  It  is  the  soul  of 
Russia  singing  her  high  song. 

I  had  stood  silent  while  the  soldiers'  chorus 
passed.  As  the  song  died  away  in  the  muffled 
distance  toward  the  Winter  Palace,  came  an- 
other sound  of  slow  drums  and  the  Chopin 
Marche  Funebre.  Out  of  the  white  distance 
down  the  Litenyie  slowly  wound  a  cortege,  a 

176 


MISS   AMERIKANKA   KNOWS 

gun-carriage  stripped  and  drawn  by  artillery 
horses  ridden  by  war-worn  soldiers;  a  rider- 
less horse  following  the  still  figure,  pricking  his 
ears  at  the  empty,  useless  stirrups ;  then  three 
officers  in  long  belted  coats;  a  white  carriage 
filled  with  flowers;  and  other  veiled  and 
shrouded  women's  figures  walking  slowly. 
That  weary,  weary  walking  through  the  snow 
—that  intimate  last  camaraderie  which  the 
Russian  rich  and  poor  alike  pay  their  dead! 
A  somber  pageant  under  the  pall  of  that 
Marche  played  with  the  curious  Russian 
rhythm,  sadder  than  any  other  rhythm  in  the 
world. 

"  Matushka,  an  officer — do  you  know 
who?"  I  touched  a  shawled  baba  who  stood 
near  me  while  the  crowd  watched  silently  with 
bared  heads.  A  sudden  breathless  pain  rushed 
through  me  at  that  moment  when  her  wrinkled 
lips  framed  the  name.  How  silently,  unan- 
nounced, tragedy  stands  at  the  door! 

His  image  was  still  before  me  as  he  stood 
before  the  fire  and  talked  of  Russia  that 
night  on  the  islands  under  the  pine,  his  mag- 
nificent Turgenev  head  and  shoulders  out- 
lined against  the  paneling.  He  had  come  to 
say  farewell  before  he  went  to  the  front,  the 

177 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

tall  Muscovite,  Dmitri  Nikolaivitch's  com- 
rade, who  had  not  feared  to  meet  his  destiny 
of  pain.  And  now  his  viking  length  of  limb 
had  passed  on  the  gun-carriage.  I  crossed 
myself  with  the  broad  Russian  cross  as  the 
cortege  wound  into  the  mists.  So  falls  the 
curtain  of  life — or  does  it  open  there — some- 
where— in  a  dazzling  radiance?  I  wondered, 
as  I  had  wondered  a  thousand  times  since  I 
stood  with  M.  Novinsky  that  night  amid  the 
shadows  of  the  cathedral. 

"Was  he  one  of  yours,  milaya?"  The  old 
woman  turned  to  me  with  patiently  dumb 
eyes. 

"Yes,  matushka"  I  faltered. 

From  the  further  whiteness  the  dirge  drifted 
back — slow  and  sad — with  indefatigable  Slavic 
sadness. 

"Gospode  tebye,  milaya"  The  old  mother 
laid  a  shawled  arm  about  me  while  I  sobbed 
quietly  with  the  incomprehensibility  of  it  all. 
"I  have  lost  five  sons  in  the  war.  It  is  too 
much  sorrow  even  for  women." 


XIV 

A    MENTAL    BREAD-LINE 

1AM  too  restless  to  read,  these  days.  To 
walk  endlessly  in  the  snow — it  is  the  only 
way  to  forget  the  obscurity  out  there  into 
which  men  drop. 

To-day  I  found  myself  in  Vassily  Ostrov. 
It  was  not  without  trepidation  that  I  passed 
a  sleepy  dvornik  and  through  an  arched  door- 
way into  the  courtyard  of  what  seemed  a  colos- 
sal apartment-house.  I  entered  such  a  court- 
yard last  week.  It  was  the  right  number,  but 
when  I  adventurously  opened  one  of  the  doors 
on  a  chance,  the  room  was  filled  with  startled 
dark-looking  men,  one  of  whom  came  quickly 
forward  to  meet  the  intruder. 

The  snow  was  melting  in  puddles  and  the 
eaves  pelted  me  with  drops  as  I  picked  my 
way  through  the  slush.  It  recalled  the  court 
in  Gorky's  Twenty-six  Men  and  a  Girl  and  I 
half  expected  to  see  the  girl  crossing  the  court, 

179 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

her  skirts  held  neatly  above  trim  ankles,  to 
meet  the  baker  with  fine  golden  hair  on  his 
forearm.  I  steered  my  way  between  puddles 
to  the  only  door  visible,  an  unlikely-looking 
one  opposite  the  entrance.  A  mutely  humble 
woman  opened  the  door,  removed  my  fur 
galoshes  and  hung  up  my  shiiba  in  a  row  of 
other  fur  coats  with  a  manner  that  could  not 
exist  with  us  any  more  than  could  an  English 
butler's  face.  It  was  the  women's  university. 

I  don't  know  what  I  expected  to  see — a 
short-haired  committee  discussing  bombs,  per- 
haps. At  any  rate,  the  atmosphere  was  very 
different.  Not  for  an  instant  could  one  have 
held  the  illusion  that  one  had  dropped  into 
an  American  university.  As  I  wandered  up 
the  stairway  I  began  to  be  inundated  by 
crowds  of  Russian  university  girls,  and  to 
breathe  more  deeply  that  atmosphere  so 
amazingly  different.  Arnold  Bennett  called 
our  education  a  pageant,  and  he  might  have 
added,  "through  which  the  youth  of  America 
walk  like  young  gods."  If  Arnold  Bennett 
were  in  Russia  he  would  call  education  a 
bread-line. 

My  guide  was  a  junior  from  Rostov  who  had 
been  twice  in  England  and  who  spoke  a  su- 

180 


A   MENTAL    BREAD-LINE 

perior  English.  She  was  not  one  of  your  pink- 
and-white  English  beauties,  but  she  was 
amazingly  magnetic,  her  face  typically  Rus- 
sian, broad  like  a  Tartar's  across  the  cheek- 
bone, and  without  definitive  line  or  color. 
Her  hair,  tawny  as  a  Cossack's,  but  fine  and 
thick,  she  wore  cut  short  like  an  early  Italian 
or  a  child,  and  continually  tossed  it  out  of  her 
eyes  with  what  seemed  to  me  an  infinity  of 
patience.  In  Solomon's  time  her  throat 
would  have  been  celebrated  in  song,  so  like  a 
tower  of  ivory,  so  firm,  so  clearly  marked  with 
the  necklace  of  beauty  that  it  tempted  the 
fingers  like  a  piece  of  sculpture. 

We  sat  down  in  the  assembly-room  while 
the  girls  promenaded  by  twos  around  the 
room,  and  she  talked  in  a  low  voice  that  came 
well  from  the  ivory  throat.  The  more  she 
talked  the  more  I  found  myself  liking  to  look 
at  her;  I  kept  recalling,  too,  Henry  James's 
description  of  Turgenev  in  Daudet's  salon  in 
Paris.  As  the  confreres  of  Turgenev  in  the 
exploit e  atmosphere  of  Paris  saw  beyond  him 
the  gray  horizon  of  Russia,  so  beyond  my 
friend  from  Rostov  I  saw  the  mysterious 
steppe.  She  was  carrying  a  beautifully  bound 
Petrarch  and  she  told  me  that  she  read  Italian, 

1*1 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

Perhaps  it  was  to  the  collector's  joy  in  me  she 
contributed,  since  I  had  found  in  her,  it  seemed 
to  me,  that  blend  of  culture  with  Titan 
strength  that  has  so  bound  me  to  the  Russian 
people. 

The  other  girls  were  different.  They  come 
from  the  four  corners  of  Great  Russia,  my 
guide  told  me — from  the  Caucasus  and  the 
Urals  and  from  those  stretches  trans-Baikal. 
The  university,  not  in  the  least  paternal  or 
patriarchal,  makes  no  provision  for  their  hous- 
ing, and  the  result  is  a  f  our-in-a-room,  cooking- 
over-a-gas-jet  arrangement,  which  tells  its  own 
haphazard  tale  in  anemic  faces  and  old  bodies. 
It  is  Latin  Quartier  life,  but  a  la  Russe,  which 
means,  perhaps,  less  light-heartedness  than  in 
Paris,  to  pass  it  off  under  gray  Russian  skies, 
and  fewer  mustard-cafes  where  a  gay  meal  and 
red  wine  may  be  had  for  a  franc.  Humanity 
en  masse,  especially  strange  humanity,  is  not 
beautiful,  and  I  found  myself  hunting  almost 
distractedly  among  the  dull-haired,  dingily  fair 
girls  for  even  one  fresh-faced,  clear-eyed  figure. 
There  was  only  one,  and  when  I  found  her  she 
stood  out  like  a  poster. 

But  the  hunger  and  thirst  of  those  faces! 
Whatever  else  slips  through  memory's  fingers, 


A   MENTAL    BREAD-LINE 

it  will  not  be  that.  I  will  not  say  that  the 
American  student  is  not  eager;"  he  may  be,  but 
he  is  not  starving  intellectually,  and  such  ap- 
petite as  he  has  he  takes  philosophically.  One 
can,  if  his  appetite  does  not  gnaw  and  if  he 
knows  that  nine-tenths  of  those  who  come  will 
not  find  a  closed  door  and  an  empty  bowl. 
But  I  agree  to  what  a  Russian  Jewish  tailor 
in  America  once  said  to  me,  that  a  Russian 
boy  at  sixteen  has  more  intellectual  curiosity 
than  an  American  college  graduate.  My 
friend  from  Rostov  tells  me,  however,  that 
their  system  follows  too  much  of  the  Oriental 
system  of  rote  and  leads  to  suicide  rather  than 
to  success.  She  would  have  more  of  applied 
science  and  more  technical  schools.  And 
doubtless  she  is  right. 

There  was  no  sign  of  revolutionists,  al- 
though the  university  is  a  notorious  hotbed 
and  often  closed  for  months  at  a  time  by  order 
of  the  Government.  But  once  I  glimpsed 
something  of  the  hidden  fire  that  must  kindle 
at  the  bottom  of  all  revolutionary  movements. 
At  the  end  of  the  second  lecture  a  wisp  of  a 
girl  came  forward  to  beg  hospital  funds.  She 
was  a  revolutionary  type,  with  burning,  dark 
eyes  and  a  voice  with  a  thrilling  undercurrent 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

of  appeal.  The  effect  was  instantaneous! 
The  margin  of  these  students  is  for  the  most 
part  the  kopeck,  hardly  more  than  the  marginal 
tenth  of  a  cash  in  China,  but  there  was  no 
question  of  means,  only  the  profound  Russian 
response  to  need — the  Russian  always,  as 
Merezhkovski  points  out,  flying  where  we 
walk,  mad  where  we  are  sane,  seeking  not  to 
save,  but  always  to  lose  himself!  And  this  is 
the  stuff  of  which  revolutions  in  Russia,  of 
which  Russia  herself,  are  made! 

It  is  Easter — the  Easter  that  M.  Novinsky 
told  me  of,  that  night,  watching  the  cathedral. 
Last  year  it  fell  in  Japan  where  the  shadows  of 
the  cryptomeria  brighten  with  the  yellow  of 
the  pilgrims'  garbs  and  the  temple  bells  call 
tranquilly  across  the  little  valleys;  and  once 
in  Rome  I  watched  the  devout  on  their  knees 
ascend  the  weary  Via  Dolorosa.  But  this 
Easter  promises  to  linger  longest  of  all;  at 
least  it  is  the  only  Easter  memory  I  have 
of  returning  in  a  ball-gown  at  four  in  the 
morning! 

Not  a  theater  nor  an  opera  open;  even  the 
play-bills  are  torn  down,  as  reminiscent  of  the 
devils  of  the  world ;  the  sweets  are  made  with 
honey,  "God's  sugar,"  but  for  the  last  three 

184 


A    MENTAL    BREAD-LINE 

days  only  crusts  of  bread  and  water  have 
passed  our  lips.  And  how  the  women  wailed 
when  the  body  of  the  Christ  was  borne  into 
the  center  of  the  cathedral!  I  confess  to 
thinking  that  the  pagan  in  me  likes  the 
pageantry  of  priesthood  in  black  velvet  and 
silver  and  all  the  splendid  ecclesiastical  pano- 
ply of  grief.  But  to-day  the  pall  has  lifted, 
the  shadows  fled.  To-day  is  Easter!  The 
priests  have  burst  from  their  black-and-silver 
chrysalides  into  full  iridescent  glory.  "  Chris- 
tos  Voskresen!"  and  the  bells  from  all  the 
golden  cupolas  are  ringing,  not  as  Japanese 
temple  bells  across  a  quiet  valley,  but  with 
Slavic  ecstasy. 

Last  night  was  a  night  to  be  remembered. 
How  I  wished  for  M.  Novinsky,  to  see  the 
loveliest  sight  in  all  Russia!  I  was  just 
crossing  the  snowy  square  in  front  of  St. 
Isaac's,  returning  from  the  last  Mass  before 
the  midnight  Easter  service,  when  suddenly 
were  the  gates  of  fairyland  flung  open.  Down 
the  aisle  of  columns,  out  from  among  the 
dusky  pillars  of  the  great  cathedral,  in  twos 
and  threes — or  sometimes  alone,  a  voluminous 
shawled  and  aproned  nyanya  in  the  background 
— came  figures,  gravely  intent  little  figures, 

185 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

each  carefully  shielding  his  candle  with  tiny 
cupped  hands  or  twists  of  white  paper,  the 
yellow  candle-light  flaring  up  into  faces  as 
cherubic  as  Reynolds's  "Age  of  Innocence," 
but  weighted  with  all  the  sweet  solemnity  of 
Miltonic  angels :  children  bearing  home  sacred 
candles  lighted  at  the  altar  for  their  own 
Lares  and  Penates.  Out  from  among  the  in- 
scrutable shadows  and  down  the  steps  of  the 
vast  cathedral  they  nickered  and  floated  in 
twos  and  threes,  and  still  farther  down  the 
canons  of  the  dark  streets,  the  spirit  lights 
wavering  and  gleaming  like  myriad  will-o'-the- 
wisps,  phantom  ships  floating  on  a  phantom 
tide.  It  reminded  me  of  nothing  so  much  as 
of  that  night  of  ancestor  worship  in  the  East, 
when  lotus  lanterns  burning  for  the  dead 
are  set  afloat  on  river  and  bay  and  far  out 
to  sea. 

The  streets  were  ablaze  with  illuminations, 
the  hotels  in  red  and  blue,  the  embassies 
great  galleries  of  light,  the  coronets  of  the  old 
aristocratic  houses  along  the  Neva  glowing 
above  the  gateways,  and  the  torches  of  the 
cathedral  angels  streaming  triumphantly 
against  the  midnight  sky.  The  cathedral 
square  was  packed  with  humanity,  but  the 

186 


A   MENTAL    BREAD-LINE 

cathedral  itself  lay,  as  always,  inaccessible 
among  its  shadows. 

Suddenly  the  giant  doors  were  flung  open  as 
if  by  some  supernal  impulse,  and  a  mighty 
flood  of  light  and  music  poured  out  into  the 
night;  from  the  heart  of  the  radiant  flood 
emerged  a  processional  of  gold-and-silvery- 
raimented  priests,  with  tapers  aloft,  crosses 
agleam  with  jewels,  the  light  falling  superbly 
on  miter  and  crown,  on  cross  and  diadem. 
Slow- wandering  through  the  snowy  night, 
solemn,  stately,  flowed  the  iridescent  stream 
under  the  Northern  velvet  sky,  banners  and 
crosses  borne  high,  tapers  gleaming  in  the 
darkness — a  fantastic  arabesque — searching 
the  night  for  the  Christ.  I  looked  and  lin- 
gered, and  still  I  lingered  while  the  chants 
searched  among  the  night  winds. 

Inside  the  multitudes  waited  with  the 
silence  of  death,  every  face  turned  toward  the 
portal  with  intense  expectation.  And  again 
the  great  doors  flung  open  for  the  proces- 
sional returning.  Now  the  strain  rose  tri- 
umphant, "  Christos  Voskresen!  Christos 
Voskresen!"  ("Christ  is  Risen!  Christ  is 
Risen!")  as  down  the  aisle  swept  the 
radiant,  silvery  stream  of  figures — while  from 

187 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

the  hosts  there  rose  the  mighty  incense  of 
adoration. 

We  had  seats  near  the  altar  in  the  gold- 
laced  diplomatic  section,  but  I  was  more  con- 
tent to  stand  in  the  great  nave.  The  woman 
next  me  was  in  a  ball-gown;  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ikon  knelt  a  shawled  figure,  but 
every  face  was  alike  exalted.  And  then  oc- 
curred that  wonderful  moment  in  the  Russian 
service  when  the  Metropolitan  advances  to  a 
dais  in  the  center  of  the  nave  and  proclaims 
to  the  waiting  hosts  that  "Christ  is  risen." 
Instantly  and  joyously  the  people  turn  to  one 
another,  falling  upon  one  another's  shoulders, 
peasant  and  noble  alike  exchanging  the  holy 
kiss  of  brotherhood.  For  one  moment  the 
flood-gates  of  heaven  are  opened  and  a  new 
joy  is  let  down  into  the  world.  A  moment 
exquisitely  Russian! 

I  had  not  felt  sure  that  my  brotherly  love 
would  stand  the  crisis  of  a  bearded  salutation, 
but  the  old  baba  on  the  other  side  of  the  ikon 
had  evidently  been  regarding  with  pity  my 
unkissed  state,  and  I  suddenly  felt  myself  in  a 
shawled  embrace.  Mile.  Novinska  kissed  me 
on  the  other  cheek  and  I,  too,  emerged  a 
brother  to  all  mankind! 

1 88 


A   MENTAL    BREAD-LINE 

I  glanced  at  Natalya  Nikolaievna  as  we 
turned  to  leave.  Her  eyes  were  soft  and 
bright  and  as  if  by  one  impulse  we  bought 
candles  at  the  door  and  lighted  them  in  the 
great  ^silver  candelabra — for  Dmitri  Nikolai- 
vitch.  Perhaps  I  am  a  ritualist.  How  else 
explain  the  inexpressible  comfort  of  remember- 
ing that  little  taper  burning  there  among  the 
shadows  of  the  Old  World  cathedral? 

And  then  we  went  away  to  break  our  fast 
on  pasha,  a  sweet,  delicious  cheese,  kuleetch, 
hard-boiled  eggs  and  ham,  and  strange  recher- 
che delicacies.  The  Novinskys  were  enter- 
taining a  brilliant  supper-party,  the  men  in 
uniform  and  the  women  in  evening  dress,  the 
whole  animated  and  Russian. 

When  we  passed  home  the  angels  on  the 
cathedrals  had  extinguished  their  torches  and 
the  streets  were  hollow  and  dark.  But  the 
archangels  themselves  could  never  dim  for  me 
the  wonderful  memory.  I  sat  meditating 
long  on  brotherly  love  and  the  many  things 
that  Russia  has  laid  deep  in  my  spirit. 

The  days  are  lengthening  up  here  in  the 
North  at  the  top  of  the  world;  the  light  grows 
warmer  and  longer.  Children  are  beginning 

189 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

to  shout  at  play  in  the  sunny  courtyards  and 
the  boy  who  skates  over  our  floors  to  polish 
them  came  to-day  in  a  Cossack  blouse  with- 
out a  shuba.  My  pastel  streets  look  as  if  they 
had  been  dropped  into  the  Mississippi  or  the 
Yangtse,  all  the  evanescent  grays  and  whites 
vanished  in  a  night.  Alas  and  alack!  for  the 
fleetingness  of  beauty!  Alas  and  alack!  for 
the  fleetingness  of  life,  too!  No  message  out 
of  the  emptiness,  and  Natalya  Nikolaievna 
lives  in  an  abstraction  from  which  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  withdraw  her. 

I  sometimes  wonder  why  the  fates  wove 
Dmitri  Nikolaievitch  into  the  pattern  of  my 
days.  There  is  in  me  that  utterly-vanished- 
from-the-earth  sense,  such  as  hangs  over  the 
great  Mongolian  plain. 

For  me  the  first  breath  of  spring,  that  pecu- 
liar smell  of  black  earth,  which  Turgenev  sings 
so  triumphantly,  has  brought  a  sadness  that 
I  never  felt  in  the  crispy  winter  days — at 
least  not  at  all  in  the  sparkling  winter  nights. 
Now  I  feel  Russia  not  ancient,  but  old,  melan- 
choly. Nowhere  in  the  world  does  the  pulse 
beat  so  high  or  the  tides  of  life  ebb  so  low  as 
here;  nowhere  an  equal  abandon,  nowhere 
that  deadliest  ennui,  skuchno.  As  I  wander 

190 


A   MENTAL    BREAD-LINE 

aimlessly  under  the  gnarled  lime-trees  along 
the  canals,  in  front  of  the  yellow  stucco  houses 
that  have  lined  these  canals  for  two  hun- 
dred years — aristocratic  old  houses,  some  of 
them,  softly  Italian  in  coloring,  but  staring 
pathetically  in  their  dotage  and  haunted  by 
centuries  of  ghosts — all  life  seems  inexplicably 
suffused  with  pathos.  I  have  lost  all  the 
major  notes  and  I  hear  only  the  minors.  It 
is  the  reverse  of  the  shield,  this  mild  melan- 
choly— the  sad  twin  of  Slavic  abandon. 

In  the  Neva  alone  I  feel  joy  and  adventure. 
It  is  still  frozen,  but  every  day  I  can  feel  it 
tugging  at  its  bonds.  Some  day,  they  tell 
me,  the  ice  will  break  with  a  crash  and  a  boom 
and  the  river  will  rush  away  to  her  lover,  the 
sea,  leaving  a  wake  of  open  waters,  while  the 
banks  line  themselves  with  humanity  to  cheer 
her  en  voyage.  There  is  a  chord  in  these  morbid 
giants  that  responds  to  this  torrential  power. 
I  remember  old  Gordyeev  in  Gorky's  novel, 
watching  the  ice  crush  his  steamers  on  the 
Volga  and  roaring  with  a  sort  of  Titanic  delight : 

Give   it    to    her  —  now  —  again  —  squeeze  —  crush! 
Come  once  more  now — r-r-rui!    See  how  the  Volga  is 
working!    It's  robust — hey?    Mother  Volga  can  rend 
the  whole  world  apart  as  one  cuts  curds  with  a  knife! 
14  iQi 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

As  I  lean  over  the  Troitski  bridge  I  can  see 
far  down  the  river  the  black  hulks  of  boats 
that  checker  the  white  spaces  of  the  Neva, 
feeling  the  stir  of  life — like  great  birds  eager  to 
lift  their  wings  and  put  out  to  the  open  sea. 

I  must  go  down  to  the  seas  again,  for 

The  call  of  the  running  tide 
Is  a  wild  call  and  a  clear  call  that 

May  not  be  denied; 

I  must  go  down  to  the  seas  again,  to 

The  vagrant  gipsy  life, 
To  the  gull's  way  and  the  whale's  way,. where 

The  wind's  like  a  whetted  knife. 

I  have  said  farewell  to  Olga  Stepanovna 
and  Agasha  Feodorovna,  to  Dasha  and  Sasha 
and  Dolly,  and  brought  the  script  and  bowl 
of  my  soul  to  the  Volga.  The  Novinskys  I 
shall  see  again  at  their  summer  place  in  Tver. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  boats  in  the  Neva,  per- 
haps it  was  "time  to  make  a  pilgrimage," 
perhaps  it  was — who  knows?  There  was  a 
softness  of  spring  in  the  air  in  Petrograd  and 
the  promise  of  open  canals,  but  I  beat  my 
wings  against  the  bars  for  open  spaces.  With- 
out my  exquisite  ambassador  I  had  lost  the 
key  to  Russia  in  Petrograd;  perhaps  I  shall 
find  it  here  again  with  brawny,  wide-skied 
Mother  Volga. 

192 


XV 

MOTHER  VOLGA 

TO  make  the  whole  journey  on  this  ancient 
Russian  whale  path,  still  the  highway  of 
romance  through  the  plain,  one  should  float 
from  Rybnisk  far  to  the  south,  to  Astrakhan, 
where  the  faces  that  line  the  sun-baked  earth 
broaden  into  the  Tartar,  and  the  river,  spread- 
ing over  the  pale  sand,  merges  with  the  sea. 
Below  Nizhni  and  Kazan,  however,  the  Rus- 
sians tell  me  there  is  but  a  variety  of  monot- 
onies. These  are  the  names  with  which  to 
conjure,  these  of  the  middle  Volga,  and  the 
sound  is  like  their  own  cathedral  bells — 
Yaroslov,  Kostroma,  Nizhni  Novgorod,  Kazan. 
This  is  Holy  Russia,  black-earth  Russia;  the 
Russia  that  Turgenev  and  Tolstoi  and  Tche- 
kov  and  Pushkin  and  Lermontov  and  Gogol 
loved.  "Nizhni  Novgorod,  Kostroma,  the 
Volga!  Ah,  there  is  the  heart  of  Russia!" 
your  Slav  will  murmur,  looking  beyond  you 

193 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

with  a  mystical  smile.  Red-shirted  giants 
were  loading  black  barges  this  morning  when 
I  left  Rybinsk.  I  am  bound  for  Nizhni 
Novgorod,  but  I  should  be  content  to  drift 
south  with  the  rafts  to  Astrakhan,  dolce  far 
niente. 

Agasha  has  so  filled  my  imagination  with 
epic  tales  of  the  whale  path  that  it  is  a  painful 
anachronism  to  take  other  than  a  sail  in  the 
silver  wake  of  the  heroes !  But  a  steamer  it  is 
— there  are  few  sails  on  the  Volga — and  that 
not  differing  greatly  from  a  Mississippi  boat 
other  than  by  an  adventurous  run  of  bizarre 
and  delicious  food.  I  curl  up  in  the  bow,  con- 
tent to  watch  the  broad,  pale  stream  moving 
majestically  out  to  sea.  The  human  element 
is  picturesque  enough ;  not  the  first  deck — that 
is  as  sparsely  inhabited  as  the  shores  we  pass — 
but  the  steerage,  which  shows  fine  patriarchal 
beards  blowing  in  the  winds,  caftaned  backs 
and  crude  faces,  half  mechant,  half  submissive. 
Great  Russians  stolidly  view  the  mystery  of 
this  northland;  gay  Little  Russians  coquette, 
the  memory  of  sunny  hills  and  vineyards  in 
their  faces;  there  are  two  Kalmyks  "infra- 
human  in  their  ugliness,"  a  group  of  Tartars 
in  fur  caps  and  khalatis,  each  carrying  a  strip 

194 


MOTHER   VOLGA 

for  prayers  and  furnishing  an  animated  half- 
hour  at  sunset.  An  agitated  business,  being  a 
Mohammedan  on  so  winding  a  stream  as 
the  Volga!  The  only  really  outstanding  fea- 
ture is  the  smell  of  disinfectants,  the  after- 
math of  the  typhus  which  a  few  weeks  ago 
scourged  the  river  with  a  fierceness  that  should 
suggest  to  a  cautious  traveler  the  wisdom  of 
weighing  the  Volga  against  a  trip  with  Charon! 
The  gulls  sweep  and  flash  about  the  steamer, 
the  silver  path  beckons  mysteriously  on;  in 
the  west  the  sun  is  shining.  It  is  a  scene  from 
a  shield !  And  then  one  by  one  the  gulls  drop 
back,  white  flecks  in  the  blue;  the  barges  and 
the  red-shirted  giants  fade  in  the  perspective. 
A  day  of  steppe  and  the  feel  of  Siberia  is  sub- 
merging me.  Monotony — but  is  not  monot- 
ony the  test  of  one's  response,  not  only  to  this 
river  of  the  steppe,  but  to  Russia?  In  the 
Russian  plain  there  lies  a  beauty  of  great 
spaces,  but  little  of  dramatic  quality,  neither 
that  of  Mongolia  rushing  swiftly  to  the  north 
nor  Siberia,  epic  in  its  waste.  When  the  world 
was  young,  one  might  have  looked  to  the 
horizon  for  mysterious  figures  of  horsemen 
fleetly  appearing  and  disappearing,  but  these 
swift  horsemen  lie  now  with  Kublai  Khan. 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

The  Russian  plain  is  the  level  of  life  itself, 
that  level  portrayed  by  Tchekov  in  the  Three 
Sisters  and  sung  in  every  mourning  peasant 
cadence,  without  plan,  prologue,  epilogue,  or 
climax — to  the  Anglo-Saxon,  with  little  zest 
for  the  inner  adventure,  the  cruelest  enigma  in 
life. 

This  is  not  to  record  that  the  fabric  of  the 
plain  is  wholly  without  design,  but  the  design 
is  repeated  end  on  end,  like  the  chorus  of  a 
peasant  melody.  Pines  point  a  sky  wide  and 
compassionate,  or  little  maiden  birches 
courtesy  in  the  breeze.  A  peasant  plows  the 
black  earth,  his  caftan  streaming  behind  him 
like  the  beard  of  a  prophet,  Riepin's  Tolstoi. 
A  turn  in  the  highway,  the  green  roofs  and 
golden  domes  of  a  monastery  thrust  their 
aerial  arabesque  above  the  dark  band  of  the 
trees.  The  Volga  is  essentially  Holy  Russia 
and  these  quaint  symbols  frequently  repeated 
become  the  Volga  motif.  Like  Tibetan  lamas- 
series,  they  shelter  hundreds  of  monks.  We 
have  pilgrim  seekers  of  their  shrines  on  our 
boat — ragged  anchoritish  figures,  feet  bound 
in  lapti,  staff  in  hand;  less  picturesque  than 
the  Chinese  pilgrims  in  yellow  brightening 
the  approaches  to  the  Buddhistic  shrines,  but 

196 


MOTHER    VOLGA 

gray,  with  the  charm  of  things  of  eld.  They 
have  heard  of  a  holy  man  to  the  north  and 
they  have  come  from  beyond  the  Caspian  to 
seek  him.  And  thus  is  perpetuated  the  mys- 
tic Slavic  quest  for  God! 

I  have  been  exploring  the  lower  deck  and 
making  friends  among  the  fish-casks.  In  the 
gloom  of  the  sleeping  shelves  it  is  difficult  to 
differentiate  between  bundled  goods  and  bun- 
dled babas  in  felt  boots  and  rags,  but  in  the 
sunshine  of  the  decks  the  springs  of  life  bubble 
up  not  yet  dry,  and  wrinkled  faces  peer  up, 
canny  but  friendly,  from  the  layers  of  shawls. 
It  is  night  that  evokes  the  Slavonic  soul. 
When  dusk  has  drawn  her  gray  curtains  and 
lighted  the  low-hanging  stars  on  the  plain, 
mystery  burns  up  from  the  Russian  like  in- 
cense. The  peasant  girls  who  stand  about  in 
the  day,  arms  intertwined,  dance  as  Russians 
dance,  with  head,  shoulders,  eyes,  trailing 
their  kerchiefs,  striking  the  decks  with  their 
hands,  stamping  with  bare  feet.  Coquetry 
never  learned  under  a  roof,  a  primitive  gambol 
far  removed  from  the  artificial  elegancies  of 
the  ballet,  and  yet,  root  and  branch,  Russian 
dancing.  Last  night  an  old  crone,  who 

197 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

squatted  at  the  side,  threw  off  her  ragged 
shawls,  a  Salome  unveiling,  and  cleared  the 
floor.  A  worthless  generation  of  dancers! 
She  herself  showed  me  the  polka,  flinging  her 
gaunt  arms,  stamping  her  heavy  boots,  tossing 
her  toothless  head.  Zest?  How  I  longed  to 
confound  the  General  with  her!  It  is  only 
when  I  depart,  however,  and  leave  them  to 
the  bundles  and  fish-casks,  that  they  pour 
out  their  whole  hearts  in  brooding  songs — 
songs  sometimes  answered  from  the  rafts. 
An  abandon  of  grief  that  delights  a  Slav! 

Sometimes  I  make  my  way  up  the  broad, 
cobbled  streets  to  the  dusky  monastery  in- 
teriors. The  Russian  service  is  hauntingly 
beautiful.  I  could  return  again  and  again  to 
its  strange  hieratic  splendor  with  a  sense  of 
something  far  deeper  than  liturgical  satisfac- 
tion if  it  were  not  for  other  memories!  But 
those  other  memories — of  Russian  priests! 
Within  a  side-chapel  a  group  of  pilgrims  are 
touching  their  foreheads  to  the  floor  and  weep- 
ing in  an  ecstasy  of  adoration  before  the 
Mother  of  God.  I  stand  silent,  a  trifle  awed. 
But  the  priest  is  victim  of  no  such  sentimen- 
tality; the  adoration  of  peasants  is  a  too 
familiar  phenomenon.  Authoritatively  he  en- 

198 


MOTHER   VOLGA 

ters  in  his  heavy  black  garments  and  evicts 
the  weeping  but  unprotesting  body  en  masse 
from  the  sanctuary;  and  then  turning  gra- 
ciously, he  invites  a  heterodox  Amerikanka  to 
rest  her  eyes  on  the  bones  of  the  saints — 
worldly  eyes,  far  more  concerned  with  the 
wondrousness  of  wrought-silver  casket  than 
had  been  the  peasants  who  now  weep  outside. 
Sometimes  I  reach  only  the  monastery  gates 
under  the  silvery  birches,  where  holy  men  sit 
as  inevitably  as  crows  perch  on  the  golden 
crosses  above.  I  usually  lighten  my  purse, 
but  the  Russian  beggar  shares  the  languor 
of  his  race  and,  competing  with  an  Italian  or 
Chinese,  would  bear  an  empty  bowl. 

I  am  the  only  foreigner  on  the  boat.  Yes- 
terday I  discovered  my  social  status  and  it 
is  not  a  matter  to  boast  of!  The  discovery 
came  through  a  country  landowner  and  his 
wife.  The  barin  is  a  melancholy-faced  giant 
dressed  in  tall  black  boots,  bloomers  of  gray 
alpaca,  a  smock,  also  of  gray  alpaca,  which 
breaks  into  a  full  skirt  at  the  back,  giving  him 
an  appearance  of  a*  sulky  but  unrepentant 
child.  With  the  barina  nature  had  been  de- 
cidedly slack;  Tartar  in  type,  but  hastily  done 

199 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

with  broad  strokes  and  illy  defined  as  to  line 
and  color.  She  wears  a  white  blouse  the 
buttons  of  which  gaily  shirk  their  duty  at  the 
back.  Food  comes  and  goes  with  them  like 
ammunition  for  a  machine-gun:  soup  soly- 
anka,  ryabtchiks,  caviare,  mushrooms.  And 
still  they  eat  stolidly,  imperturbably,  occa- 
sionally eying  me  with  the  perplexed  sorrow 
of  the  Slav.  Yesterday,  suddenly,  with  a 
tingling  shock,  it  came  to  me — they  had  mis- 
taken me  for  a  German !  After  a  hasty  recon- 
naissance I  made  a  friendly  onslaught  upon 
the  steward  in  Russian.  The  landowners 
pushed  back  their  chairs.  They  left  their 
mushrooms.  Proshchaiete!  A  thousand  par- 
dons and  a  glass  of  kvass!  And  would  I  do 
them  the  imperishable  honor  to  visit  them  on 
their  estate  in  Tambov?  An  anarchistic 
young  man  who  had  eyed  me  violently  begged 
a  passionate  pardon,  and  a  waiter  wiped  his 
eyes  contritely  in  a  corner.  The  sensitive 
heart  of  Russia! 

Now  that  the  barina  and  I  have  exchanged 
civilities  we  sometimes  explore  the  booths 
together.  Unpicturesque  as  she  is  on  the 
steamer — patterned  after  Mother  Volga  her- 
self, subject  for  Bogdanov-Belsky  or  Zorn — 

200 


MOTHER  VOLGA 

she  is  not  unpleasing  against  the  background 
of  the  bazars.  Yesterday  was  a  purely  secu- 
lar day;  no  monasteries,  but  we  found  a 
turquoise-studded  belt  of  ancient  workman- 
ship and  a  beaten-silver  bowl,  set  with  the 
coin  of  Catherine  the  Great.  Troikas  seldom 
come  into  the  squares,  the  war  having  taken 
toll  of  the  smart  third  horse  that  gallops  at 
the  side.  The  peasant  of  the  river  town, 
where  the  echoes  of  the  world  are  heard,  has 
laid  aside  his  beautiful  peasant  embroideries, 
too,  and  wears  products  of  the  loom  that 
justify  a  protest  against  the  commercializa- 
tion of  Russia.  And  yet  the  scene  may  not 
be  mistaken  for  other  than  Slavic — lounging 
haphazard  figures  with  smoldering  or  dazed 
or  dreamy  eyes — all  moving  over  broad  flags 
under  wide  arcades — so  like  an  opera  chorus, 
that  I  am  only  amazed  that  the  director 
does  not  order  my  Anglo-Saxon  figure  off 
stage! 

It  was  in  the  great  square  of  Yurievets  yes- 
terday that  one  of  those  tragic  fragments  of 
life,  sometimes  cast  up  like  driftwood,  was 
flung  at  my  feet.  Why  the  memory  should 
persist  I  know  no  reason  except,  perhaps,  a 
sensitized  moment  of  insight  into  reality  or 

2OI 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

that  strange  chance  that  fixes  forever  a  face 
seen  in  the  parting  of  a  crowd.  A  Cossack's 
leave-taking  it  was,  a  million  times  repeated 
this  spring.  That  was  all.  But  it  was  more 
— symbol  of  woman's  ancient  and  inarticulate 
grief.  The  soldier  himself,  a  mighty-bodied 
young  fellow,  was  visibly  moved;  he  openly 
wiped  his  eyes  on  his  coarse  brown  sleeve, 
while  under  both  arms  he  clutched  absurdly 
at  two  enormous  loaves  of  black  bread;  a 
child  in  the  mother's  arms  fluttered  small,  in- 
effectual hands  in  the  direction  of  the  steamer. 
But  the  silence  of  that  Tartar-cheeked  woman 
of  the  North!  She  wept  neither  "ai,  ai"  nor 
"oi,  oi" \  neither  touched  her  man  in  farewell 
nor  seemed  to  know  any  of  those  small  caresses 
by  which  we  seek  to  mitigate  our  grief.  The 
sullen  monotony  of  the  North  had  laid  its 
finger  on  her;  only  her  eyes  showed  her  ter- 
ror, following  her  mate  with  the  unreasoning 
grief  of  the  jungle-sprung.  As  the  steamer 
moved  slowly  out  into  the  gray  dusk  of  the 
evening  I  fancied  I  could  see  her  face  strain- 
ing through  the  mists  like  an  archaic  mask 
of  despair. 

These  sturdy,  patient  women — unconscious 
vessels  of  that  black-earth  force   which  is 

202 


MOTHER   VOLGA 

Russia!  The  steamer  calls  at  only  the  larger 
towns,  but  we  often  pass  the  villages  edging 
out  of  the  forest  or  lodged  between  the  folds 
of  green,  wide-streeted,  wide-timbered,  sprung 
from  the  earth  like  mushrooms  or  lichens.  In 
the  fields  women  are  plowing,  uncouth  figures 
from  whose  broad  loins  have  emerged  those 
multitudinous  armies  which  swarm  myriad- 
wise  across  the  plain.  And  still  they  bring 
them  forth.  Men  and  bread!  Bread  and 
men!  It  is  well  that  mother  earth  teaches 
patience. 

The  river  is  an  endless  rosary,  strung  with 
days  as  alike  as  the  white  towns  and  all  laden 
with  a  sense  of  life,  sluggish  and  primal.  The 
scent  of  pines,  of  new-mown  hay,  of  drying 
nets,  and  the  fragrance  of  lilacs.  Brawny 
sailors  in  red  and  blue  shirts  shout  and  splash 
one  another  with  water  as  they  scrub  the 
decks;  grain-steamers  whistle;  hammers  sound 
from  barges  building  along  the  shore;  anchor 
chains  rattle  as  we  drop  into  the  wharf  where 
fishermen  are  unloading  their  shining  catch. 
A  robust  river  life,  not  unfamiliar  in  essentials, 
but  transposed  into  strange  keys  and  staged 
on  a  magnificent  scale.  Near  Astrakhan  the 

203 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

river  teems  with  life  as  at  Canton,  but  here 
all  is  of  the  sky  and  the  plain. 

The  rafts  are  the  most  Russian  craft  we 
meet,  piles  of  yellow  logs  as  delicious-looking 
as  taffy,  bound  together  with  withy  young 
saplings,  each  raft  bearing  its  tiny  hut  for 
the  families  who  make  the  journey  with  the 
rafts,  weeks  and  even  months  en  voyage  to  the 
sea;  people  with  rollicking  figures  balancing 
themselves  with  long  poles  and  laughing  and 
shouting  unintelligible  cries  to  us  as  the 
steamer  surge  threatens  their  footholds.  The 
trackers  we  never  see,  burlaki,  muscles  knot- 
ting in  their  hairy  throats,  thews  straining 
like  the  haunches  of  horses  against  the  dead 
weight  of  the  barges,  men  of  herculean  strength 
—as  Ryepin  has  painted  them — leashed  to  the 
river  under  the  lash  of  the  burlaki  driver.  They 
have  passed  with  the  passing  of  the  sails  on 
the  Volga;  only  occasionally  a  boat  must  be 
towed  up-river.  But  the  other  figures — on 
the  rafts,  in  the  fishing-boats,  driving  along 
the  edge  of  the  forest — are  their  brothers. 
One  hundred  and  eighty  million  of  these  faces 
crude  and  filmed  with  ignorance,  freshly 
emerged  from  the  black  mold!  Can  these  be 
the  units  of  a  republic?  Again  that  varie- 

204 


MOTHER   VOLGA 

gated  tide  streaming  westward  in  Siberia  en- 
gulfs me.  "Russia  needs  something  of  a 
strong  hand — but  there  is  a  chance  for  free- 
dom, too." 

Kostroma  at  sunset — an  ancient  Stamboul, 
lying  high  above  the  river!  Russia  by  day, 
but  by  night  Haroun-al-Raschid's  own  city. 
With  the  passing  of  day  all  the  cities  along 
the  Volga  become  less  Russian  and  more 
Oriental,  darkness  eliminating  the  detail  and 
leaving  them  to  cut  the  sky  like  giant  card- 
board silhouettes.  It  is  past  sunset  when  we 
sight  the  domes  and  minarets  of  Kostroma, 
but  a  tent  of  orange  and  purple  hangs  in  the 
sky.  Below  the  great  ramparts  the  river 
flows,  a  nocturnal  mystery.  On  our  mon- 
strous steamer  pushes,  past  caravans  of  barges 
and  lighted  steamers,  under  an  arched  and 
jeweled  bridge,  which  casts  its  reflection  on  the 
tugs  and  sets  myriad-million  balloons  of  light 
afloat  on  the  murky  water  below.  The  anchor 
chains  rattle,  the  bearded  saints  shout  and 
bawl;  but  I  am  little  conscious  of  the  flare  of 
light  and  of  noise  in  the  ship — only  of  the 
cascade  of  minarets  above  us,  a  giant-starred 
citadel,  climbing  up,  up  into  the  sky!  What 

205 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

Oriental  whimsicalities  of  outline  lying  there 
above  the  mighty  river!  It  is  to  wish  not  for 
the  artists  who  line  the  salons  with  harsh 
wintry  sketches,  but  for  Vereschagin,  with  the 
magic  caught  in  Japanese  temple  interiors  and 
the  courts  of  Indian  rajahs,  to  paint  night  in 
this  Oriental  Russia. 

Our  mission  at  Kostroma,  however,  is  not 
Oriental,  but  purely  Russian.  We  are  landing 
one  of  the  great  bells  for  which  the  city  is 
famous.  From  the  pier,  under  the  streaming 
torches,  a  hushed  medley  of  faces  gazes  up  at 
us  reverently.  We  might,  indeed,  be  the 
Lohengrin  ship.  There  are  a  few  caftaned 
passengers  to  depart  with  their  bundled  goods, 
and  then  a  gangway  is  cleared  across  the  pier 
and  through  the  cavernous  shadows  of  the 
warehouse.  Around  the  bell  are  cast  cables, 
slipping  far  down  on  its  sides  bronze  under  the 
torches,  and  around  its  graven  base.  And 
then  forty  men,  twenty  on  a  side,  throw 
themselves  at  the  ropes  with  rhythmical  cries 
and  a  sort  of  religious  ecstasy.  Perhaps  it  is 
an  act  of  devotion  to  land  so  monstrous  a  bell ! 
And,  trampling  and  straining,  they  chant  a 
broken  rhythm  that  catches  at  one's  pulses, 
and  draw  the  bell  from  the  deck  and  across  the 

206 


MOTHER   VOLGA 

landing,  their  voices  returning  faintly  from  the 
warehouse  like  the  voices  of  a  retreating  opera 
chorus.  There  is  a  vigorous  harmony  in  its 
concerted  human  effort,  like  that  of  the 
rhythmically  reaching  arms  and  backs  of  "The 
Gleaners."  The  apotheosis  of  labor!  And 
for  a  moment  I  caught  the  vision  of  Russia 
united  in  a  mighty  brotherhood. 

For  all  the  robust  daylight  life,  the  memory 
of  night  on  the  Volga  lingers  most  Russian 
and  ineffaceable.  There  is  none  of  the  re- 
hearsed picturesqueness  of  the  Nile,  dayabeahs 
clustering  like  giant  butterflies  nor  lateen  sails 
hastening  down  the  dusky  river,  but  night 
unique,  to  be  remembered  when  more  theatri- 
cal memories  have  passed.  Sunset  is  splendid, 
the  sky  hung  with  shifting  tints — as  if  all  the 
bazars  of  the  East  were  tenting  there.  Nor 
does  the  glory  leap  up  for  a  moment  and  then 
pale  into  a  fleeting  and  evanescent  aftermath, 
as  on  the  Nile,  but  deepens  and  darkles 
steadily,  magnificently,  into  the  velvety  black- 
ness of  night.  The  shore  merges  with  the 
plain  and  the  whole  takes  on  the  immensity  of 
the  sea.  The  water,  thick,  black,  and  buoy- 
ant, reflects  the  stars  like  fringed  daisies. 
15  207 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

The  sky  is  withdrawn  to  greater  depth,  and 
across  sky  and  river  and  steppe  is  written  a 
new  and  poignant  mystery.  A  steamer  swings 
out  from  a  bend  in  the  river  like  "a  lighted 
basilica"  and  blazes  its  way  down  the  trail,  its 
funnels  staring  back  like  eyes  from  the  dark- 
ness; barges  emerge,  slow-sailed  and  ponder- 
ous, their  bulky  shapes  blocked  heavily  against 
the  curtain  of  night,  spars  rocking  softly  under 
the  starlit  heavens — a  silent  nocturnal  pag- 
eant. There  are  other  shapes  imminent  there 
in  the  darkness — gray  forms,  dim  and  indis- 
tinct, barely  discernible  among  the  uncouth 
shadows  of  the  river — rafts  floating,  drifting 
there  in  the  unknown,  riding  the  swell  of  the 
steamer,  jostling  one  another  in  the  eddying 
current — infinitesimal  points  of  life  pitted 
against  the  menace  of  night  and  the  river.  It 
is  not  difficult  to  project  oneself  there,  to  see 
the  mists  from  the  steppe  inclosing  them  like 
walls  reaching  to  the  sky,  and  eyes  that 
"slumber  not  nor  sleep"  peering  through  the 
fog — the  fog  soundless  except  for  the  lapping  of 
the  water.  Muscles  are  taut  to  pole  the  un- 
wieldy masses  from  the  jutting  banks  or  to 
turn  them  from  sudden  death  in  the  path  of  the 
towering  steamers.  From  across  the  water, 

208 


MOTHER   VOLGA 

at  the  edge  of  the  rafts,  tiny  brushwood  fires 
are  twinkling  like  autumn  fires,  calling  to  us 
that  there  are  brothers  there  in  the  void. 
Sometimes  sounds  of  a  carousal  float  on  the 
night  wind,  a  debauch  of  hairy  giants  rebel- 
ling against  the  level  of  life  and  the  steppe. 
Again  silence.  A  single  voice  threads  out  of 
the  darkness,  wails  out  a  despairing  lament  to 
the  stars,  and  sinks  back  into  the  void.  Si- 
lence! I  know  of  nothing  by  which  the  sense 
of  the  whole  submerged  and  despairing  life  of 
Russia  so  passes  into  the  soul  as  by  these 
cries  from  the  heart  of  the  river. 

Nizhni  Novgorod.  Even  here  in  the  Near 
East  the  name  bears  an  aromatic  flavor.  A 
Slavic  Scheherazade,  teasing  away  time  for  an 
ennuied  knyaz,  must  have  told  him  tales  of 
this  city  whose  gates  so  often  heard  the 
battering-rams  of  the  rival  khans  of  Kazan, 
and  I  dare  say  the  potentate  was  vastly  en- 
tertained. The  great  fair  does  not  open  until 
August,  but  even  now  there  is  an  odor  and 
feel,  an  inexplicable  suggestion  of  the  bazars. 
The  streets  lie  in  the  morning  sunshine  like  a 
huge  deserted  stage,  ready  to  quicken  into 
life.  Whimsical  golden  domes,  fantastic  open 
booths,  official  white  houses  square  and  bare 

209 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

as  bird-cages,  twisted  and  curling  spires  of 
milk-white,  apple-green,  and  sky-blue — a  gro- 
tesquerie  of  color,  a  motley  of  East  and 
West  such  as  one  sees  nowhere  outside  of 
Russia.  For  ten  months  Nizhni  is  a  desert 
city;  for  two,  a  European  capital.  A  month 
more,  the  wide-girthed  hotel-keeper  tells  me, 
and  preparations  will  begin.  Beggars  will  be 
evicted  from  their  winter  quarters;  booths 
and  awnings  will  spring  up  overnight  like 
yagodi;  by  every  train  wares  will  pour  in  from 
Moscow  and  Petrograd,  Paris  and  Vienna. 
Barges  will  anchor  at  the  wharves,  laden  with 
wood,  tallow,  and  skins,  while  from  the  East 
will  loom  the  caravans  bearing  apricots  and 
oils,  skins,  furs,  and  wools;  hircine  Kirghiz, 
Kalmuks,  Georgians,  turbaned  Persians — all 
to  barter  in  the  tongues  of  Babel. 

The  boat,  being  Russian,  deposited  us  on 
the  wrong  shore  of  the  river,  but,  approaching 
the  ferry,  I  could  see  banks  rising  dark  and  ram- 
partwise,  and  crowned  with  gleaming  apoca- 
lyptic domes  and  spires.  Below  on  the  plain 
the  Volga  stretched,  a  gigantic  blue  "  Y,"  the 
two  prongs  pointing  to  the  Arctic  Sea,  and  the 
main  river  leading  sluggishly  southward  to  the 
Caspian.  With  this  sight  of  the  Volga, 

210 


MOTHER   VOLGA 

Turgenev's  tribute  to  the  Russian  language 
ran  through  my  memory:  "Oh,  thou  great, 
mighty,  powerful  and  free — !"  A  fit  apos- 
trophe, too,  for  this  great  Russian  river.  Both 
sides  of  the  river  below  the  crotch  of  the  Y 
were  stippled  with  golden  spires  and  domes 
and  the  west  bank  was  dotted  with  river 
craft,  hulking  black  barges,  mammoth  white 
lumber-steamers,  and  strings  of  yellow  rafts, 
not  a  fleet  shape  among  them,  but  all  broad 
and  robust,  like  Mother  Volga  herself. 

The  ferry  was  almost  equally  divided  be- 
tween mujiks  and  little  brown  calves,  the  latter 
not  less  quiet  than  the  peasants  who  stood 
bareheaded  in  the  morning  sun,  silently  cross- 
ing themselves  with  the  broad  Russian  cross. 

It  is  a  mid-Russian  morning,  somnolent  and 
blue;  the  Volga,  deep-breasted,  mirrors  a  sky 
not  luminous  as  the  Japanese  heavens  nor 
inscrutable  as  the  intense  blue  of  Egypt,  but 
near,  kind,  and  compassionate.  Whether  it  is 
the  tranquillity  of  the  morning  or  the  peasants 
crossing  themselves,  I  do  not  know;  I  feel 
myself  laved  and  sunk  in  peace.  A  person- 
ality, many  personalities  before  this  one, 
steals  back  from  the  past.  I  seem  to  feel 
white  curtains  blow  across  me,  I  wander  in  a 

211 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

garden.  The  wind  is  in  the  trees.  And  then 
with  a  flash  it  all  comes  to  me.  Those  spires 
and  domes  are  the  heaven  of  my  childhood! 
I  see  it  all  again,  the  castellated  walls  and 
pinnacles  and  the  golden  streets  and  the  jew- 
eled gates.  An  aunt  in  my  childhood  always 
wore  on  her  forefinger  an  oblong  amethyst 
stone — basis  of  my  early  anticipation  in  the 
joys  of  Paradise.  There  among  the  dark 
trees  must  be  flashing  the  amethyst  gate,  and 
the  jasper  and  the  chrysoprase  and  the  "sar- 
dine stone" — whatever  that  was!  And  I 
think  it  must  have  had  something  of  this 
meaning  to  the  muzhiks. 

Since  it  is  not  yet  time  for  the  train,  I  have 
strolled  up  to  the  terrace  above  the  river  to 
drink  tea — amber  tea  which  halves  every 
grief  and  doubles  every  joy  in  Russia!  Below 
me  walls  of  a  thousand  years  keep  guard 
toward  Asia.  And  here  it  is,  on  this  free 
sweep  of  terrace  hanging  above  the  crumbling 
walls,  with  the  wind  blowing  from  the  eastern 
steppe,  that  the  most  powerful  impression  of 
the  Volga  is  laid  deep  in  my  consciousness. 
On  all  sides  the  plain  spreads  toward  the 
horizon  with  the  continuity  of  the  sea,  a  wild, 
illimitable  level.  But  it  is  the  river  that  holds 

212 


MOTHER   VOLGA 

me  fascinated.  One  of  the  lumber-steamers 
anchored  above  the  caravan  pushes  off  with 
rings  of  smoke  and  swings  out  into  the  river 
past  the  thick-bodied,  flat-bottomed  boats, 
the  waves  foaming  white  with  the  paddles; 
the  main  current  is  laden  with  a  caravan  of 
river  rafts  which  the  water  bears  as  cockle- 
shells. It  could  crush  them,  too,  as  cockles. 
It  pours  itself  along  now  a  molten,  deceptive 
blue,  but  I  remember  that  at  the  spring  thaw 
warnings  must  be  flashed  ahead  to  dwellers 
on  even  the  tributary  banks  that  the  river  has 
broken  bounds,  is  splintering  the  black  hulks 
frozen  in  its  surface,  and  crashing  its  thunder- 
ous gray-grained  way  to  the  sea.  I  know  that 
old  Ignaat  Gordyeev  spoke  true,  old  Ignaat 
watching  his  handsome  new  grain-steamers 
crushed  against  the  banks.  "Mother  Volga 
can  rend  the  whole  world  apart  as  one  cuts 
curds  with  a  knife."  And  so  it  can,  "as  one 
cuts  curds  with  a  knife,"  and  pass  on,  vast,  un- 
hurrying,  uncaring,  a  huge  force  "not  having 
as  yet  created  for  itself  clear  aims  and  de- 
sires"; like  Russia,  unconscious,  inconquer- 
able;  a  ruthless  protean  power  as  yet  escaped 
the  subduing  which  has  come  to  man  through 
toil  and  anguish,  this  vast  old  whale  path! 

213 


PART  III 


XVI 

3  9' 
BEHIND    M.   NOVINSKY'S    EYES 

A  WHITE  barrage  moves  across  Moscow, 
1\  but,  in  spite  of  the  phantom  bombard- 
ment, I  have  been  sitting  on  the  Kremlin  wall, 
watching  the  city  like  a  dim  old  enamel  below. 
I  understand  now  the  glow  in  M.  Novinsky's 
face.  This  is  the  Russia  that  lay  back  of  his 
eyes,  this  quaint  tapestry  woven  and  dyed 
with  centuries  of  Russian  dreams  and  prayers, 
this  splendid  old  Bagdad.  This  and  the 
Volga!  Dmitri  Nikolaivitch's  Russia  and 
mine.  The  manager  of  the  hotel  has  given 
me  a  room  overlooking  a  court  where  pigeons 
are  fluttering  and  feeding  in  the  sunshine  as 
if  at  St.  Mark's.  I  sit  for  hours,  a  balconied 
princess  looking  beyond  to  roofs  patterned 
like  a  caliph's  dream.  It  is  not  sad  to  be 
alone  here.  Strangely  enough,  I  feel  com- 
panioned. It  is  the  illusion  of  place.  I  must 
meet  M.  Novinsky  here,  it  seems  to  me,  in 

217 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

these  devious  old  streets,  this  ancient  brocade, 
overlaid  with  medievalism,  mellow  with  all  the 
accumulated  richness  of  the  Slavic  race. 

Moscow — it  is  the  flower  of  Russia !  Petro- 
grad  is  a  bureaucrat's  town,  transplanted  and 
artificial,  but  Moscow  is  the  sum  of  the  natural 
processes  of  centuries  of  a  race-soul.  One 
need  not  be  told ;  it  is  in  the  churches  and  the 
streets,  in  the  aura  of  the  people.  Here  are 
still  the  houses  of  the  boyars.  Here  rose  the 
stronghold  of  consolidated  Muscovite  power; 
here  in  the  sacred  Uspe-nsky  cathedral  the 
Czars  are  christened,  wed,  and  crowned. 
Above  the  city  reigns  the  Kremlin,  not  the 
Kremlin  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  a  phoenix 
rising  each  century  resplendent  from  its  ashes, 
more  sheerly  dominating  the  city  than  any 
other  city  in  the  world  is  dominated,  than 
Peking  by  the  Great  Gates  or  Rome  by  St. 
Peter's. 

Of  course  I  can  never  comprehend  Moscow ; 
without  Dmitri  Nikolaievitch  I  am  bewildered. 
No  Westerner,  born  and  bred  to  miles  of  gray 
stones,  could  be  other  than  astonished  and 
subdued  at  the  sight  of  the  Kremlin,  a  con- 
gress of  starry  palaces  and  cathedrals,  rising 
mystical  and  barbaric  above  the  pink  em- 

218 


BEHIND   M.   NOVINSKY'S    EYES 

battled  walls  with  which  the  Tartars  encom- 
passed their  city;  "the  two  extremes  of  Asia 
joined  together  and  enshrined  in  the  heart  of 
Slavism — the  marauding  spirit  of  the  Mongol 
conquerors  mixed  with  the  sensuality  of  By- 
zantine Orientalism — the  God  of  Battles  and 
the  God  of  Prayer  explained  as  one  and  the 
same  conception  of  God,  worshiped  on  a  half- 
overturned  altar  of  Moloch." 

It  is  for  me  a  never  fully  explored  dream,  the 
Kremlin.  Perhaps  it  is  the  marauding  Mon- 
gol in  me  that  turns  my  steps  thither,  stopping 
sometimes  at  the  shrine  of  the  Iberian  Virgin, 
a  street  chapel  so  sacred  that  even  the  Czar 
must  pray  there  before  he  enters  the  Kremlin, 
through  the  red  Spasskaya  gate  where  every 
man  from  izvostchik  to  Emperor  must  remove 
his  hat  in  order  to  be  prepared  for  the  glories 
within;  past  the  "Czar  Poushka,"  the  king 
of  cannon  captured  from  Napoleon's  broken 
army;  and  leads  my  way  among  palaces  and 
cathedrals  into  the  dimmest  and  richest  of 
recessed  interiors. 

The  spacing  is  not  magnificent  as  it  is  at 
St.  Isaac's;  the  cathedrals  are  all  built  on  a 
closer  scale,  like  the  boyars'  houses,  but  so 
rich  in  jeweled  mosaics  that  for  a  moment  one 

219 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

fancies  the  Peacock  Throne  of  the  Great 
Moguls  translated  into  a  room.  The  gorgeous 
beauty  hangs  about  one  like  incense,  the  spirit 
of  Slavic  adoration  made  tangible,  exultation 
made  manifest.  I  am  all  alone  here  except 
for  peasant  women,  but  I  am  never  without 
the  sense  of  the  shadowy  hosts.  There  hang 
the  banners  of  Pultova  and  Plevna,  and  by 
the  altar  is  the  sacred  ikon  that  went  before 
the  armies  of  Kulikovo.  Here  is  a  scimitar 
of  Suleiman  the  Magnificent,  and  the  floor  is 
a  jasper  gift  from  the  Shah  of  Persia.  This 
candelabrum  of  solid  silver,  from  the  Russian 
soldiers  themselves,  commemorates  Napo- 
leon's broken  army;  and  in  that  ikon  is  an 
emerald  that  might  flank  the  Kohinoor.  To 
pray  in  this  niche  is  to  shudder,  for  here  Ivan 
the  Terrible  used  to  hear  Mass ;  there  lies  his 
body  at  rest — freed  at  last  from  its  murderous 
rages.  Under  a  silken  canopy  sleeps  Boris 
Godunov  and  the  little  prince  he  slew.  The 
peasant  women  kiss  the  mask  of  the  mur- 
dered malenki,  the  little  one.  It  was  in 
Uspensky,  most  sacred  of  cathedrals,  that 
Napoleon  stabled  his  horses,  and  sometimes 
in  the  silence  of  the  praying  peasant  women  I 
fancy  I  can  hear  the  drums  fore  and  aft. 

220 


BEHIND    M.    NOVINSKY'S    EYES 

Sometimes  I  climb  to  the  aery  of  "Kolokol, 
the  Big  Bell,"  and  there  from  the  Ivan  Bell- 
tower,  hung  and  strung  with  bells,  I  can  look 
far  down  the  river  and  across  to  the  old  green 
monastery  roofs.  There  is  a  beautiful  paint- 
ing in  one  of  the  Petrograd  galleries  of  the 
Russian  bell-ringers  in  the  towers  and  I  have 
promised  myself  to  haunt  Kolokol  until  some 
saint's  day  sees  him  rung,  the  picturesque 
ringers  pulling  mightily  at  the  ropes! 

There  in  the  upper  air,  too,  I  feel  nearer 
the  abyss  out  there. 

The  Russia  that  I  hear  in  Rachmaninoff, 
in  Rimsky-Korsakov,  in  Tchaikowsky,  is  here 
—the  Russia  that  I  see  in  the  ballet,  that  I 
felt  most  powerfully  on  the  Volga,  that  I 
sensed  but  never  found  in  the  capital,  that  I 
am  aware  of  deep  in  M.  Novinsky.  A  nation 
growing  widely,  thrusting  its  roots  deep,  living 
with  a  deep  unawareness;  a  nation  for  whom 
life  is  "not  performance,  but  adventure";  a 
nation  too  great  to  be  labeled  and  catalogued, 
colossal  enough  to  topple  over  and  crush  any 
system,  menacing  but  fascinating;  a  nation 
exploding  so  powerfully  from  within  that  its 
destiny  can  neither  be  predicted  nor  deter- 

221 


" 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

mined  by  any  man  nor  any  group  of  men, 
evolving  strange  symmetries  and  casting  up 
from  its  depth  its  own  new  orders  and  new 
laws  which  form  only  to  break  and  form 
again.  Is  it  only  the  pagan  in  me  that 
shrinks  from  having  Russia  learn  the  super- 
ficial advancedness,  the  sophisticated  tech- 
nique, the  thin  knowingness  of  the  West? 
Is  it  only  the  barbarian  that  hopes  out  of  this 
unordered  portentousness,  these  bizarre  sym- 
metries, to  catch  new  meanings,  new  elan  of 
life,  new  mystic  sources  of  power? 

M.  Novinsky  is  the  cosmopolitan,  more 
neatly  finished  than  anything  purely  Russian, 
but  for  all  his  polished  perfection  and  mon- 
daine  quality  it  is  the  Russia  of  his  back- 
ground, and  I  think  his  charm  is  this  same 
immense  naturalness.  I  remember  seeing  the 
passion  for  it  in  his  eyes  once  when  we  were 
watching  the  Tartar  scene  in  "Kitish,"  and 
his  expression  as  he  exclaimed,  "God  forbid 
that  that  scene  should  ever  sober  down!" 
There  is  a  nostalgia  perhaps  in  each  of  us  for 
the  earth  as  it  was  in  the  beginning. 

This  to  me,  a  cellular  sensitiveness  of  life, 
must  be  always  the  miracle  of  Russia.  Not 
happiness — no,  it  is  not  happiness,  for  happi- 

222 


BEHIND    M.    NOVINSKY'S    EYES 

ness  is  built  on  peace,  but  something  more 
turbulent,  more  poignant,  but  more  profound. 
However  crusted  over  by  institutions  and 
tradition,  life  here  is  a  stream  swiftly  chang- 
ing, complex;  organic  rather  than  inorganic; 
cells  dividing  from  within,  newly  combining; 
ceaseless  processes  of  mental  and  spiritual  par- 
turition. However  ringed  about  by  the  steel 
ring  of  bureaucracy,  Russia  has  never  died  at 
the  heart;  she  grows  from  within  as  sturdily 
as  a  young  bamboo. 

As  I  sit  on  the  Kremlin  wall,  gazing  down 
on  the  city  below,  I  ponder  many  things. 
America  is  like  a  design  leading  out  from  the 
center  and  leaving  one  restless  and  dissatis- 
fied. But  Russia,  thrown  constantly  back 
upon  herself,  has  built  up  a  soul  to  pit  against 
the  world.  Is  not  this  the  reason  why,  a 
hundred  years  after  she  had  a  literary  lan- 
guage, she  produced  the  one  notable  literature 
of  this  century?  A  tongue  newly  articulate, 
but  a  life  old  in  wisdom.  The  West  has  laid 
ingenious  hands  upon  the  trappings,  the  sub- 
stitutes and  imitations,  all  the  anodynes  of 
life,  but  I  cannot  but  feel  that  Russia  has  the 
quivering  reality. 

16 


XVII 

AN    ADVENTURE    IN    PERSONALITY 

DAY  after  day  the  gods  are  pouring  sun- 
shine steadily  down  on  this  old  citadel  of 
the  North,  picking  out  the  colors  like  the  stones 
in  a  Florentine  mosaic.  What  a  wonderful  old 
city  for  happiness!  I  feel  a  powerful  rhythm 
in  this  old  city,  not  yet  disrupted  by  the  war, 
although  I  have  lost  my  own  beat  and  I  sit 
in  the  sunshine,  waiting,  waiting  for  Some- 
thing that  never  happens,  for  Somebody  who 
never  comes.  Can  it  be  that  all  that  subtle 
sense  of  significance,  all  that  responsiveness, 
all  that  remembered  tenderness,  have  perished 
out  there  in  the  dark?  "It  is  the  common 
fate."  But  even  to  have  been  his  friend  for 
a  day  is  to  feel  life  mellow,  full  of  nuance, 
overhung  with  a  soft  wonder. 

Moscow  does  what  she  may  to  warm  the 
cockles  of  the  heart.  She  might  be  Italian 
were  she  not  so  Russian;  and  I  did  discover  a 

224 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  PERSONALITY 

bit  of  Venice  yesterday,  an  old  woman  feeding 
pigeons  in  the  piazza,  of  the  cathedral  near 
the  Spasskaya  gate,  a  pleasant  bit  of  grotes- 
querie  against  the  apple-green,  milk-white, 
sky-blue  spires  of  the  cathedral  which  soared 
to  the  heavens  in  strange  flutings  and  con- 
volutions. I  longed  to  hear  her  tell  tales  of 
the  Tartar  Khans  of  Kazan,  as  Sasha  told 
me  tales  of  little  devils  sitting  on  a  rooftree 
and  the  sprites  that  filled  their  pitchers  at 
the  spring.  I  would  be  troubadour  for  a 
day,  for  only  a  troubadour  could  faintly 
express  the  fragrance  of  this  "many-towered 
Camelot." 

After  all,  personality  is  the  great  adventure, 
and  I  have  come  upon  a  rare  one  in  Madame 
Novinska's  greatest  friend  in  Moscow,  Ma- 
dame Berentskaya.  Moscow  w  Russian  tra- 
dition. Many  noble  houses  here  are  more 
ancient  than  the  reigning  house  of  Romanoff, 
and  Madame  Berentskaya  has  opened  the  door 
of  some  of  these  houses  before  which  one 
might  sit  a  lifetime  in  vain,  doors  through 
which  I  have  caught  glimpses  of  old  Russian 
life,  as  one  sometimes  glimpses  courts  and 
flowers  and  moon-doors  through  the  great 
gates  of  the  East.  No  longer  magnificent  in 

225 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

estate,  Madame  Berentskaya,  but  none  the  less 
the  unmistakable  patrician  of  intelligence  and 
heart,  with  an  atmosphere  much  the  same  as 
that  of  Madame  Novinska.  The  fine  fiber 
was  always  there,  I  am  certain,  but  perhaps 
her  association  with  Tolstoi  has  left  its  stamp 
of  moral  earnestness.  Many  guests  have 
come  and  gone  at  Yasnaya  Polyana,  but  few 
have  stood  so  near  the  prophet  as  Madame 
Berentskaya,  a  co-worker  in  the  famine  re- 
lief of  1905  and  a  translator  of  Tolstoi's  works. 
Her  reminiscences  of  those  famous  after- 
dinner  moonlit  causeries,  when  the  master 
himself  set  the  key  for  discussion,  should  be 
chapters  in  Russian  literature. 

Being  of  a  scribe's  tendency  myself,  I  find 
as  inexhaustible  interest  in  the  habits  of  the 
writing  genus  homo  as  Fabre  found  in  his  bee 
world.  Tolstoi's  daily  life  at  Yasnaya  Polyana 
Madame  Berentskaya  has  often  discussed  with 
me.  His  habit  was  to  have  tea  alone  in  his 
study  and  to  work  through  the  morning;  to 
lunch  with  his  family  and  guests,  and  to  ride 
or  walk  through  the  estate  in  the  afternoon, 
alone  or  with  a  companion  of  his  choosing; 
to  dine  again  at  night  at  the  long  family 
table.  It  was  he  who  usually  started  the 

226 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  PERSONALITY 

brilliant  talk  after  dinner  which  pointed  up 
the  thought  of  the  day. 

"And  by  what  standard  shall  we  judge  the 
artist?"  began  the  gaunt  figure,  pacing  up 
and  down  under  the  trees,  one  white  night  at 
Yasnaya  Polyana. 

"By  three  things,  I  say:  by  invention,  by 
sincerity,  by  form." 

"And  what  would  you  say  of  Russian 
writers  measured  by  these  standards?"  ven- 
tured somebody  among  the  respectful  group 
who  listened  in  the  shadows. 

"Gogol  first  in  every  respect,"  he  answered, 
after  a  pause.  "Dostoevski,  no.  Invention, 
marvelous;  sincerity,  undoubted;  form,  none." 

"And  Tolstoi,  what  of  him?" 

"Tolstoi,"  mused  the  figure  in  the  peasant's 
smock.  ' '  Tolstoi — invention,  yes,  to  some  de- 
gree; form,  chaotic;  sincerity,  absolute!" 

Sincerity  was,  to  Madame  Berentskaya, 
Tolstoi's  passion,  and  not  the  least  part  of  his 
genius. 

When  I  voiced  the  world's  question  as  to 
the  reason  for  Tolstoi's  flight  just  before  his 
death  from  everything  that  was  personally 
human  and  dear,  Madame  Berentskaya  named 

Tolstoi's  secretary. 

227 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

"A  man  of  inflexible  purpose,"  she  said, 
"the  preservation  of  Tolstoi's  spiritual  legacy 
unspotted  to  the  world.  If  Tolstoi  would 
leave  his  ideal  pure,  resurgent,  it  was  as 
necessary  in  the  eyes  of  this  man  that  he 
should  die  one  of  the  despised  and  rejected 
as  it  had  been  that  Christ  should  be  crucified. 
It  has  been  an  ever-present  question  in  my 
mind  whether  Leov,  left  alone  in  those  feeble 
last  days,  would  not  have  sought  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  Church.  The  two  did  stop  at  a 
monastery — this  secretary  and  he — you  re- 
member, but  they  went  on.  I  have  so  often 
wondered  what  Leov  would  have  done  had  he 
been  alone.  He  died  at  the  railway  station 
soon  after,  with  poor  Countess  Tolstoi  begging 
outside  for  permission  to  say  farewell.  You 
remember  her  cry,  'The  friend  of  a  lifetime, 
and  I  am  not  even  permitted  to  hear  his  last 
words.'  Ah,  milaya,  there  it  is  again — the 
incompatibility  of  the  actual  and  the  ideal! 
It  is  to  make  one  despair." 

"And  is  there  no  reconciliation?"  I  begged. 

Madame  Berentskaya  shook  her  head.  "I 
do  not  know,"  she  answered,  sadly. 

The  sincerity  of  Tolstoi  I  have  often  heard 
questioned  in  Russia.  He  is  not  in  his  own 

228 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  PERSONALITY 

land  the  mountain -peak  as  is  Dostoevski, 
with  his  boundlessly  suggestive  philosophy, 
and  knowing  the  Russian,  I  find  it  not  dif- 
ficult to  understand  the  reason.  But  to  ques- 
tion his  sincerity,  it  is  inconceivable! 

Once,  after  he  had  been  dangerously  ill, 
Madame  Berentskaya  was  invited  to  Yasnaya 
Polyana.  Tolstoi  was  still  in  bed  and  weak. 

"And  now,  Leov,  tell  me,"  said  Madame 
Berentskaya  as  she  sat  down  by  his  bedside, 
"since  you  have  been  so  near  death,  tell  me 
what  you  think  of  the  beyond." 

A  strong  emotion  passed  over  Tolstoi's  face 
and  for  some  minutes  he  did  not  answer. 
And  then  turning  his  shaggy  gaze  upon  her, 
he  replied,  "Elena  Ivanovna,  I  assure  you,  so 
great  is  my  sense  of  sin  that  if  I  believed  that 
I  must  carry  it  with  me  beyond  this  life,  I 
could  not  be  responsible."  And  he  fell  back 
trembling. 

"Is  it  true,  then,"  I  begged  of  Madame 
Berentskaya,  "that  Tolstoi  did  not  believe  in 
the  continuity  of  identity  after  death,  in  a 
personal  immortality?" 

And  again  Madame  Berentskaya  answered 
sadly  and  slowly,  "I  do  not  know." 

Yesterday  I  came  to  Madame  Berentskaya 
229 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

looking  a  bit  fagged.  Turning  me  to  the 
light,  she  scrutinized  me  closely. 

"You  have  been  overworking  again,  golubt- 
chik,"  she  warned. 

"Yes,  madame,"  I  smiled,  hopelessly.  "I 
am  trying  to  paint  a  Russian  man." 

"Ah,  milaya,"  Madame  Berentskaya  shrug- 
ged her  shoulders  with  a  gesture  of  despair. 
"Who  can  paint  a  Russian  man?" 

Last  night  I  dined  in  an  ancient  house,  built 
around  a  court,  as  is  the  Novinskys',  a  house 
in  which  one  of  the  scenes  from  War  and 
Peace  is  laid,  and  quite  the  same  as  in  the 
old  days  when  the  brilliantly  uniformed  young 
officers  swaggered  through  its  high-ceilinged 
rooms  at  balls  or  enormous  suppers,  home 
from  conquering  Napoleon! 

It  is  all  so  strange.  Am  I  really  walking 
through  War  and  Peace?  The  same  names 
recur,  the  same  figures  with  which  Tolstoi's 
gigantic  canvas  is  crowded.  These  men  with 
whom  I  dine,  they  are  Rostovs  and  Volkon- 
skys;  I  recognize  them.  I  even  know  the 
bear-like  Pierre  BezukhofT.  The  Russians 
themselves  say  that  it  is  a  re-turning  of  the 
pages  of  history,  even  to  the  hesitations,  de- 
lays, shifting  of  responsibility  that  character- 

230 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  PERSONALITY 

ized  the  Napoleonic  campaigns — the  national 
characteristics  endlessly  repeated.  Some- 
times when  I  have  come  from  the  Tolstoi 
Museum,  where  I  have  pored  over  photo- 
graphs of  Yasnaya  Polyana,  of  the  shaggy 
peasant  figure  in  the  fields,  on  horseback,  in 
his  study,  with  wife,  with  daughter  or  guests, 
alone  under  the  limes,  gnarled,  weighted  with 
the  sense  of  sin  and  moral  responsibility, 
agonizingly  isolated  in  his  spiritual  anguish,  I 
feel  that  in  a  parting  of  the  throng  I  must 
come  upon  the  Terrible  Seeker.  One  need 
never  in  Moscow  be  lonely  for  the  dead. 

Often,  too,  on  the  street  I  feel  that  I  must 
meet  Tchekov,  who  loved  Moscow  tenderly. 
I  have  heard  Madame  Berentskaya  reminisce 
of  him,  too,  a  whimsically  sad,  keen,  but  with- 
drawn man.  And  often  I  remember  that 
great  wind  of  which  he  speaks  which  is  to 
clear  Russian  life.  And  it  is  here  in  Moscow, 
Tchekov's  own  city,  where  the  hospitals  are 
overflowing  and  every  house  has  lost  a  son, 
that  one  feels  Holy  Mother  Russia. 

No,  one  need  not  in  Moscow  feel  lonely 
for  the  dead.  Of  late  M.  Novinsky  has  been 
inexplicably  here,  too.  I  go  on  the  walks  he 
would  have  chosen.  I  speak  to  him  about  the 

231 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

pictures  he  loved.  I  can  see  his  face  lighting 
with  his  un-self -conscious  smile,  the  move- 
ment of  his  narrow  hands,  his  slight,  compact 
figure.  If  there  were  mists  here  as  in  Petro- 
grad,  I  am  certain  he  would  emerge.  Is  it 
possible  that  he,  too,  has  passed  za  gmnitza — 
beyond  the  borders — and  returned  to  me  here 
in  Moscow,  where  the  dead  are  known? 


XVIII 

NEWS    FROM    THE    FRONT 

NATALYA  NIKOLAIEVNA  is  in  Mos- 
cow. I  met  her  at  the  station  this  morn- 
ing, the  same  station  where  Vronsky  first  sees 
Anna  alighting  from  the  train.  It  was  Tolstoi's 
scene  repeated;  the  train  rumbling  in,  shaking 
the  station,  the  smart  conductor  and  the  het- 
erogeneous passengers.  One  of  the  slim,  long- 
waisted  officers  talking  near  me  might  have 
been  Vronsky  and  Stepan  Arkadyevitch,  the 
luxurious  figure  with  curling  beard  and  the 
flower  in  his  buttonhole.  Sometimes  I  see 
Anna  Karenina  in  Natalya  Nikolaievna,  the 
dark  hair  clustering  about  a  semi-pellucid 
skin,  and  the  sensitive  red  mouth,  except  that 
Natalya  Nikolaievna  is  taller  than  Anna 
Karenina,  with  more  the  air  of  a  reserved 
young  princess.  The  resemblance  was  very 
striking  to-day  when  she  alighted  from  the 
train,  less  frail  than  usual  and  more  vivacious. 

233 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

"Ah,  Amerikanka,"  she  cried,  kissing  me  on 
both  cheeks,  her  long  gray  eyes  shining 
through  her  black  lashes,  "I  bear  good  tid- 
ings! News!  News!  Do  you  understand, 
Amerikanka?  God  grant  that  it  is  true — 
news  from  my  brother,  from  Dmitri!" 

A  message  out  of  that  blind  immensity! 
I  could  not  speak ;  I  could  only  look  at  her  as 
one  might  look  at  some  bright  angel  who  bore 
confirmation  of  a  paradise. 

And  then  while  Masha,  the  little  maid  with 
fair  braids  wound  round  her  head,  and  old 
Anton  looked  after  the  luggage,  she  told  me 
the  meager  detail.  A  message  had  come, 
only  one  word,  a  quaint  word  they  had  used 
as  children.  "The  word  makes  it  certain." 
She  laid  her  hands  on  my  shoulders  and 
looked  at  me  with  shining  eyes.  "No  one 
knew  but  Dmitri  and  me." 

She  withdrew  her  hands  from  my  shoulders 
and  stood  for  a  moment,  wrapt  in  memory. 
She  was  very  like  Dmitri  Nikolaievitch  at  that 
moment.  What  an  intensity  of  feeling  these 
Russians  have,  that  makes  other  passions  look 
compromising  and  commonplace!  And  then 
we  made  our  way  out  of  the  cavernous  station, 
through  which  the  spring  sunshine  stole  ten- 

234 


NEWS    FROM   THE    FRONT 

tatively  like  new  little  tendrils  of  joy  in  a 
barren  life,  and  rolled  away  tinder  the  bur- 
geoning limes  which  seemed  but  the  precipita- 
tion of  one's  own  joy. 

Natalya  spread  her  thin  hands  in  the  sun- 
shine. "Ah,  this  wonderful  old  city!"  she 
cried,  as  we  followed  the  winding  streets. 
"My  school-days  were  spent  here.  How  I 
love  it!  One  does  not  ask  enough  of  life!" 

One  does  not  ask  enough  of  life ! 

I  have  been  to  pray  at  the  little  chapel 
under  the  Kremlin  Hill.  "Unexpected  Joy," 
the  Russians  have  named  it — the  chapel  that 
I  love  best  in  Moscow.  How  well  these  Slavs 
know  the  heart!  Dear  godmother,  once  you 
warned  me  that  life  would  lead  me  to  religion ; 
it  has  not  been  through  sorrow,  as  you  feared, 
but  it  is  something  akin  to  pain. 

Perhaps  it  is  only  the  sunshine,  perhaps  it 
is  the  news  of  a  Russian  victory,  perhaps  it  is 
the  maltchiks  crying  great  bunches  of  lilies  on 
the  street  that  makes  me  so  blithe.  But 
suddenly  in  the  midst  of  it  there  strikes  one 
grim  note.  Seven  officers  were  hanged  to- 
day. The  Novoye  Vremya  prints  only  the 
statement  and  the  Russians  are  silent. 

It  is  not  in  victory,  but  in  crises,  that  one  is 
235 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

most  conscious  of  the  Slav.  It  is  in  catas- 
trophe that  the  Russians  draw  together  as  if 
by  racial  impulse,  and  from  the  circle  of  their 
anxiety  look  coldly  or  indifferently  at  the 
foreigner.  They  talk  little,  ceasing  when  I 
enter,  and  I  am  warned  not  to  speak  English, 
the  language  of  an  ally,  on  the  street.  What 
do  we  of  America,  the  blend  of  every  nation- 
ality, know  of  this  pure,  white-hot  flame  of 
an  inbred  race?  How  many  new  currents 
are  visible  nowadays!  At  first  Russian  life 
moves  on  a  fairly  undisturbed  stream  of 
existence,  but  gradually,  as  one's  eyes  be- 
come accustomed  to  the  complexity,  and 
more  observant,  mysterious  whirlpools  man- 
ifest themselves,  and  strange  subterranean 
flows. 

A  bit  of  Mile.  Novinska's  natural  gaiety  has 
returned,  an  enchanting  thing  to  see.  To-day 
we  went  to  the  Nobility  School  near  the  Red 
Gate,  at  which  she  was  educated,  an  enormous 
white  structure  rambling  about  a  court.  We 
were  admitted  by  a  decorative  butler,  who 
scrutinized  me  suspiciously  and  left  us  to  wait 
in  the  drawing-room  furnished  with  rosewood 
and  a  chrysoprase  table  and  pervaded  with  a 

236 


NEWS    FROM   THE    FRONT 

fragrance  which  suggested  the  passing  of  a 
Lely  or  a  Kellner  beauty. 

"He  regards  you  as  if  you  might  be  about 
to  elope  with  the  pet  princess,"  twinkled  Mile. 
Novinska. 

Madame  T.,  the  principal,  was  more  cordial. 
It  was  touching  to  see  her  when  she  took 
Natalya  Nikolaievna's  hands. 

"Ah,  dushenka,  I  know.  The  fiance,"  she 
murmured,  kissing  Natalya  Nikolaievna  on 
both  cheeks.  "But  you  are  brave  and  God 
will  be  good  to  you." 

She  turned  to  me  with  an  enveloping  smile. 
"  I  remember  this  one  as  so  tiny  a  child.  '  The 
black  witch,'  the  girls  used  to  name  her.  She 
was  so  fiery,  with  a  wee  face  and  such  thin 
arms,  always  curled  up  reading.  And  madame, 
votre  mere?  Ah,  mademoiselle,  she  is  one  of 
the  truly  great  ladies  of  Russia.  And  the 
little  brother  who  was  at  the  Corps  des 
Pages?  Do  you  remember  how  he  used  to 
come  in  his  long  uniform,  always  with  a  big 
box  of  sweets,  looking  like  a  young  Napo- 
leon?" 

We  had  tea  at  the  hands  of  the  suspicious 
butler,  who  evidently  approved  no  Americans 
invading  this  sacrosanct  spot,  where  not  a  drop 

237 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

of  other  than  titled  blood  flows,  whose  walls 
not  even  an  American  millionairess  could  scale 
with  father's  golden  ladder. 

"I  wish  Mademoiselle  I 'Americaine  to  see 
our  monastery,"  Mile.  Novinska  said. 

"If  you  are  expecting  luxuries,"  Madame  T. 
warned,  "turn  back.  No  scented  quarters 
here  heaped  with  silken  pillows;  no  seductive 
sweet-eating  princesses." 

And  indeed  it  was,  in  spite  of  Madame  T.'s 
warning,  far  less  luxurious  than  I  had  im- 
agined. A  scrubbed  and  sanded  monastery 
with  white  walls  and  rows  of  iron  beds.  We 
entered  into  an  airy  room  with  beds  in  a  row, 
each  with  an  ikon  at  its  head.  The  plain 
toilet  articles  and  bath  slippers  of  straw  were 
arranged  with  geometric  precision.  Madame 
T.  opened  the  wardrobes  that  we  might  see. 
Each  showed  one  heavy  stuff  dress,  two  pairs 
of  woolen  stockings,  a  coat,  and  a  tam-o'- 
shanter  for  outside,  not  in  the  street — little 
nobles  do  not  walk  in  the  street,  but  in  the 
courtyard,  the  same  sunny  courtyard  that  we 
could  see  outside  the  window,  where  the  Czar 
and  Czarina  come  for  tea.  The  school  was 
established  by  Elizabeth  and  is  directly  under 
the  patronage  of  the  Czar,  the  highest  medal 

238 


NEWS    FROM    THE    FRONT 

that  a  girl  can  win  being  the  monogram  of  the 
Empress  in  diamonds. 

"She  rarely  comes  now,  the  Empress,"  said 
Madame  T.,  "but  how  lovely  she  was  in  those 
days!" 

"Yes,  I  remember,"  Mile.  Novinska  mur- 
mured. 

In  the  linen-room,  stacked  high  with  snowy 
homespun  linen,  patient  maids  were  mending 
with  exquisite  stitches.  Mile.  Novinska 
greeted  two  of  the  maids  while  I  gazed  and 
gazed  at  those  peasant-plain  garments.  Un- 
like the  poet,  I  thought  not  a  little  of  the 
revelation  therein.  Before  me  seethed  the 
embroidery  and  lace  from  which  the  American 
girl  rises  like  Venus  from  the  foam.  These 
garments  were  simplicity  itself,  not  only  sim- 
ple, but  heavy  and  durable. 

"No  man  could  quite  comprehend  the 
abysmal  difference,"  I  murmured  to  Natalya 
Nikolaievna. 

"In  all  things  the  young  Russian  girls,  like  the 
young  French  girls,  are  superbly  unspoiled," 
answered  Mile.  Novinska,  reading  my  thought, 
"but  when  they  are  married  their  trousseaus 
are  magnificent.  The  trousseau  of  my  best 
friend,  when  she  was  married,  was  fit  for  a 
17  239 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

museum.  As  for  seclusion,  at  first  she  dared 
not  even  drive  alone  or  drink  so  much  as  a 
white  wine  without  her  husband's  permission, 
all  of  which  amused  the  husband  enormously." 

"And  in  all  this  there  is  the  touch  of  the 
epicurean  East." 

"Yes.  How  more  deliciously  prepare  a 
woman?  When  she  goes  to  her  husband,  her 
senses,  her  imagination,  are  as  fresh  as  the  day 
she  was  born,"  said  Mile.  Novinska.  "She 
is  ready  for  all  the  delicate  allurements  of  life, 
for  the  Russian  loves  a  woman  not  alone  for 
the  woman  herself,  but  for  what  she  can  give 
him." 

"In  spite  of  all  the  camaraderie  in  Russia" 
— Madame  T.  frowned  severely — "we  are  not 
yet  free  from  the  harem." 

The  princesses  themselves  are  stiff  little 
figures  in  such  costumes  as  I  can  imagine 
no  boarding-school  girl  in  America  wearing: 
heavy  blue  stuff  skirts,  coarse,  clean  cotton 
blouses,  broad  leather  belts,  and  hair  in  braids. 
They  courtesy  shyly  as  we  pass,  with  a  well- 
bred  lack  of  curiosity.  Three  girls  were 
standing  at  a  cross-section  of  the  corridor,  a 
roguish  gipsy  face  and  two  paler,  straighter 
types  with  short  bangs  like  an  old  French  print, 

240 


NEWS    FROM   THE    FRONT 

all  in  the  heavy  blue  skirts  and  aprons  tied  at 
the  back. 

"Countess  X's  daughter,  the  dark  one," 
said  the  principal,  mentioning  a  famous  name. 
"Her  grandfather  is  one  of  our  richest  land- 
owners. She  will  be  a  figure  some  day  in 
Russia." 

"All  these  bobbing  little  girls  are  the  bear- 
ers of  the  great  names  of  Russia,"  said  Natalya 
Nikolaievna.  "In  a  few  years  they  will  ex- 
change their  sensible  boots  for  French  heels, 
put  up  their  long  braids,  lengthen  their  skirts 
overnight,  and,  voilal — the  Kittys  and  Na- 
tashas  and  Anna  Kareninas — the  brilliant,  so- 
phisticated women  of  Russian  society." 

"None  of  them  speak  less  than  five  lan- 
guages," added  Madame  T. 

"And  are  they  so  well  educated  in  other 
ways?"  I  asked,  respectfully  eying  the  little 
polyglots. 

Madame  T.  shook  her  head  gravely. 

"Russians  are  Orientals  in  temper,  and  the 
children,  like  their  elders,  are  wretchedly  dis- 
ciplined," she  sighed.  "I  know  one  woman 
who  was  so  bewildered  and  terrified  by  her 
children  that  she  never  went  near  her  nursery. 
Can  you  imagine  a  little  girl  of  eight  declaring 

241 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

vehemently  to  the  governess,  'You  may  beat 
us  and  pinch  us  and  cut  us  up  in  fine  pieces 
and  boil  us  in  oil,  but  we  will  never,  never 
say  that  we  love  mother  as  well  as  we  love 
you.'  All  wealthy  Russians  employ  English 
governesses  to  discipline  their  children." 

Through  miles  of  spotless  corridors  we  went, 
past  innumerable  immaculate  rooms  where 
smooth  braids  bent  over  books  or  industrious 
ringers  recounted  endless  scales. 

"It  was  there  I  had  scarlet  fever,"  smiled 
Natalya  Nikolaievna,  looking  in  at  the  cool, 
white  hospital.  "Dmitri  sent  old  Yegor  with 
his  parakeet — do  you  remember? — lest  I  might 
die!" 

And  then  we  went  below  to  see  the  baths. 
"The  same  Russian  banya  in  which  all  Russia 
steams  in  one  mighty  cloud  every  Saturday 
night  from  the  Arctic  to  the  Caspian,  from  the 
Pacific  to  the  Gulf,"  laughed  Natalya  Nikolai- 
evna. And  so  it  was,  a  long,  heated  room 
with  benches  and  a  flagged  floor,  where  the 
little  patricians  splash  and  scrub  one  another 
and  climb  on  the  top  shelves  to  steam. 

"Can  you  imagine  it  in  England  or  in 
America,"  said  Natalya  Nikolaievna,  "all  this 
steaming  aristocracy  ? ' ' 

242 


NEWS    FROM   THE    FRONT 

"A  scene  for  a  Russian  Alma-Tadema, 
ri '  est-ce-pas?" 

Perhaps  it  was  only  our  mood  that  made  it 
all  seem  so  amusing.  Our  trail  led  back 
through  the  dining-room,  where  on  the  tables 
clustered  blue  glass  bowls. 

"  Nu,  Amerikanka,  of  course  you  cannot  un- 
derstand," Mile.  Novinska  laughed,  deli- 
ciously.  "Have  you  ever  read  of  gentlemen 
who  waved  their  hands  to  dry  them  and  rinsed 
their  mouths  from  golden  ewers?  These 
bowls  are  of  the  Middle  Ages.  One  rinses 
one's  mouth  after  dining!  The  custom  con- 
tinues in  not  a  few  houses  of  the  old  nobility." 

How  I  should  have  liked  seeing  the  little 
lad  from  the  Pages'  School  solemnly  sending 
his  parakeet  to  the  little  black  witch  sister, 
"lest  she  might  die!" 

This  more  than  half  old  Byzantine  city  is 
forever  flinging  a  new  jewel  into  one's  lap  as 
magnificently  as  if  she  were  the  mistress  of 
Aladdin's  lamp.  And  it  is  well  to  have  bau- 
bles, for  no  one  knows  when  Dmitri  Niko- 
laivitch  returns.  Last  night  it  was  the  Ar- 
tistic Theater,  the  despair  and  the  joy  of 
connoisseurs — Gordon  Craig,  Granville  Bar- 

243 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

ker,  and  even  the  Germans.  And  yet  Madame 
Novinska  remembers,  only  twenty  years  ago, 
an  evening  of  amateur  theatricals  at  the  house 
of  a  rich  merchant,  Alexieff,  in  which  the 
merchant  himself  played  the  leading  roles. 
And  the  merchant  is  still  playing  the  leading 
roles,  for  he  was  Stanislavsky. 

The  theater  is  of  the  simplest.  The  walls 
are  done  in  a  forest  brown  with  a  frieze  of 
Tchekov's  chaiki,  sea-gulls,  in  stenciled  flight. 
The  curtain  also  is  a  woodsy  brown,  with 
white  gulls  pinioned  against  it,  reminiscent 
of  Tchekov's  "Sea  Gull,"  and  also  of  the  in- 
comparable Komissarshevskaya's  tragically 
wild  and  tender  r61e.  The  whole  atmosphere 
is  serious.  It  is  not  the  mode  to  dress,  and  the 
audience  looks  like  a  flock  of  wrens.  But  the 
faces  are  intellectually  eager  and  the  eyes 
smoldering  eyes  never  seen  on  Broadway. 

"I  never  feel  so  much  a  vulgar  intruder  as 
at  the  Artistic  Theater,"  Mile.  Novinska  de- 
clares, "spying  on  private  affairs  which  should 
be  no  concern  to  the  public." 

To  me  the  Artistic  Theater  spells  two  great 
traits  of  the  Russian:  extreme  realism  and  a 
deep  vein  of  poetry.  In  a  realistic  play,  the 
art  is  photographic.  If  a  play  is  to  be  given 

244 


NEWS    FROM   THE    FRONT 

in  the  Tambov  dialect,  the  company  lives  in 
Tambov  for  the  summer.  If  the  scene  is  laid 
in  Greece,  the  r61es  are  assimilated  under 
Hellenic  skies.  The  peasant  is  disgustingly 
true  to  life!  The  Russians  are  realists  and 
their  dramatic  realism  reaches  its  meticulous 
ne  plus  ultra  in  Tchekov,  a  whimsical  master 
of  genre  who  opposed  the  artificial  cutting 
away  of  contingent  matter  and  the  intense  fo- 
cusing of  dramatic  conversation  and  action. 
He  wrote,  one  might  say,  in  the  flat.  And 
yet,  through  what  seems  a  sea  of  irrelevant 
and  trivial  detail  runs  a  large  and  inexplicable 
poetry.  And  with  a  similar  technique  the 
Artistic  Theater  plays  Tchekov,  casting  up  sig- 
nificance from  the  commonplace,  chaotic  de- 
tails like  a  delicate  lacy  pattern.  That  which 
with  other  players  is  unintelligible  and  dull  be- 
comes, with  their  technique,  suffused  with 
meaning — pathos,  despair,  longing — which  are 
the  reality  of  Russian  provincial  life.  When 
the  play  is  not  realistic,  the  Russian  wanders 
in  strange  vales  of  the  imagination,  of  which 
the  Saxon  has  little  intimation.  Gordon 
Craig,  searching  for  new  symbols  of  dramatic 
representation,  chose  among  the  players  of 
the  Artistic  Theater  for  figures  to  set  against 

245 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

his  sweeping  lines  of  pity  and  fear.  The  re- 
sult of  the  experiment  was  a  "Hamlet"  that 
marked  a  new  epoch  in  the  theater — a  "Ham- 
let" Greek  in  the  pity  and  fear  induced  by  its 
setting,  and  as  acted  by  these  marvelously  in- 
telligent and  sensitive  players,  Greek  in  its 
terror  and  tragedy — a  high  poetic  achieve- 
ment. 

"Stanislavsky  is  the  dominant  personality 
now,  as  he  has  always  been,"  Mile.  Novinska 
informed  me.  "A  leonine  Byronesque  man 
with  magnificent  dark  eyes  under  his  heavy 
brows." 

Mile.  Knipper  is  the  premiere  among  the 
actresses.  The  play  was  "Autumn  Violins," 
a  dramatic  bit,  as  melancholy  as  a  Russian 
autumn  itself.  One  can  but  follow  Knipper 
avidly.  She  is  not  beautiful  now,  but  she  is 
poetic  and  sympateechnaya  and — the  woman 
whom  Tchekov  loved. 

We  had  tea  between  the  acts  with  the  little 
beagle-eyed  secretary,  who  told  us  that  but 
for  the  war  the  company  would  have  been  in 
England  next  year,  and  asked  about  certain 
productions  in  America,  with  an  eye  to  the 
future  of  the  Artistic  Theater.  And  then 
after  the  theater,  through  his  kindness,  we 

246 


NEWS    FROM   THE    FRONT 

went  behind  the  scenes  to  Tchekova's  (Mile. 
Knipper's)  dressing-room. 

Lafcadio  Hearn's  epitaph  to  the  grass-lark 
who,  when  Hana,  the  housemaid,  forgot  to 
feed  him,  ate  his  own  legs,  might  have  been 
written  above  Tchekova's  door:  "Yet,  after 
all,  to  devour  one's  legs  for  hunger  is  not  the 
worst  that  can  happen  to  a  being  cursed  with 
a  gift  of  song.  There  are  human  crickets  who 
must  eat  their  own  hearts  in  order  to  sing." 
A  spent  figure  in  a  lavender  dressing-gown  sat 
limply  in  front  of  an  enormous  mirror,  while 
a  maid,  too  wise  to  touch  her,  hovered  in  the 
background.  In  "Autumn  Violins"  she  had 
played  the  r61e  of  a  mother  who  married  her 
own  lover  to  a  daughter  in  order  to  avert 
scandal.  The  Russians  all  about  us  had  com- 
mented, "She  ages  moment  by  moment." 
And  I  had  felt  it,  too,  with  anguish  less  akin 
to  pity  than  to  terror.  Now  this  disintegrat- 
ing woman  sat  before  me,  dark  lines  following 
her  sagging  cheeks,  two  splashes  shadowing 
her  eyes,  the  weariest  thing  in  the  world. 
And  I  realized — as  if  I  had  not  realized  it  a 
thousand  times  before — the  pain  of  a  being 
"cursed  with  the  gift  of  song." 

When  I  thanked  Tchekova  for  the  pleasure 
247 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

she  had  given  me  she  looked  at  me  with 
Russian  kindness  and  a  little  curiosity.  "You 
liked  my  play?"  she  asked,  a  little  wistfully. 
It  may  have  been  acting;  if  so,  it  was  superb. 
Tchekova,  the  idol  of  Russia,  wistfully  asking 
for  commendations! 

"But  that  is  quite  sincere,"  Mile.  Novinska 
assured  me,  as  we  turned  away.  "With  us, 
especially  at  the  Artistic  Theater,  our  great 
players  are  very  humble."  I  wanted  to  beg 
Mile.  Knipper  to  talk  of  Tchekov,  but  it  did 
not  seem  the  one  perfect  topic,  since  the  rumor 
is  that  she  made  him  miserably  unhappy. 
The  company  was  leaving  on  the  night  train 
to  play  their  annual  term  in  Petrograd,  afesta 
in  the  theatrical  world  for  the  capital,  and  I 
lingered  only  long  enough  to  beg  Tchekova 
to  come  to  America,  an  idea  in  which  she  was 
as  interested  as  the  barest  neophyte.  Two 
strong  impressions  will  always  remain  of  this 
premiere  among  Russian  players — sympathy 
and  work — a  sympathy  as  universal  as  life — 
the  human  being  marvelously  realized — and 
relentless  labor. 

I  comprehend,  too,  why  the  Russian,  when 
in  London,  avoids  the  drama. 


XIX 


"SOMETHING   POIGNANT' 


ONE  might  linger  forever  in  this  sunny 
paradise;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  however, 
I  shall  be  away  to  the  Novinskys'  summer 
place  as  soon  as  the  lake  clears.  No  mes- 
sage from  Dmitri  Nikolaievitch  out  of  the 
dark.  My  life  is  a  House  of  a  Thousand 
Emptinesses. 

Madame  Novinska  went  to  Tver  before  the 
ice  broke,  but  just  now  the  lake  is  an  impasse 
and  the  only  road  to  Bortnaka  is  a  hundred 
versts  around  the  shore  over  Russian  roads, 
difficult  at  any  time  and  bottomless  in  spring. 
I  remember  Madame  Novinska's  narration  of 

how  the  doctor  at  0 drove  all  night,  with 

fresh  horses  every  hour,  once  when  M.  Novin- 
sky  was  ill,  only  to  assure  her  that  she  was 
doing  all  that  was  possible,  drink  huge 
draughts  of  coffee,  snatch  a  fish-pasty,  and 
then  drive  all  day  back  again. 

249 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

I  have  been  making  pilgrimages  these  days 
to  all  the  well-beloved  haunts  of  my  Bagdad — 
to  the  intimate  sketches  of  Russian  life  at  the 
Tretyakov  Gallery,  and  the  Vereshchagins, 
Oriental  and  opulent  and  shimmering  with 
heat;  to  Gelza  last  night  at  the  ballet,  danc- 
ing her  fantastic  Belgique,  gleaming  in  red 
and  gold  and  trumpet-clear,  the  apotheosis 
of  the  Belgian  spirit ;  to  Kolokol  and  Uspensky 
and,  not  least,  to  the  pigeons  at  the  Spasskaya 
gate.  And  to-day  I  am  just  home  from 
Sparrow  Hills. 

Princess  Kalitzina's  cousin  came  for  me, 
and  it  was  charming  out  on  that  old  Moscow 
road  to  Sparrow  Hills,  past  the  "Not  Dull" 
palace  stretching  its  pale  buff  length  along 
the  river  among  the  mysterious  Bocklin  trees, 
and  the  park,  a  fresh  sunny  paradise.  From 
the  terrace  of  Sparrow  Hills  the  city  unrolls, 
a  vast,  illuminated  scroll  below,  the  capital 
picked  out  in  blue  and  green  and  gold,  bound 
only  by  the  silver  of  river  and  sky.  If  the 
hills  had  kept  a  guest-book  they  would  have 
recorded  many  a  famous  guest,  even  that  most 
distinguished  Moscow  visitor,  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte !  It  was  from  this  terrace  that  Napoleon 
sought  to  decipher  the  beautiful  prize  and 

250 


'SOMETHING    POIGNANT' 

gazed  upon  the  long-coveted  city  disappearing 
in  fire  and  smoke. 

It  was  inexpressibly  fragrant  as  we  sat  and 
sipped  tea  on  the  parapet  in  the  soft  spring 
sunshine,  under  the  budding  limes — Anna 
Tcherbatskaya  (Princess  Kalitzina's  delicious 
young  cousin — not  long  since  married,  ab- 
sorbed in  a  pensive  reverie  of  the  young  sur- 
geon at  the  front)  and  I .  Anna  Tcherbatskaya 
has  just  been  on  a  visit  to  the  front,  traveling 
like  a  young  empress,  and  has  lived  seventeen 
days  just  below  the  crest  of  a  hill,  under  the 
roar  of  the  guns.  I  look  at  her,  and  for  the 
moment  I  am  in  the  Petrograd  hospital  again 
and  I  hear  M.  Novinsky's  quaint,  un-English 
voice,  "No  one  gives  herself  like  a  Russian." 
Nevertheless,  I  count  it  something  for  a  girl 
who,  until  her  marriage  two  months  ago,  had 
never  crossed  the  street  alone.  And  so  we 
sat,  I  musing  on  the  city  below,  on  Napoleon 
and  many  things  neither  the  city  nor  Na- 
poleon, on  this  strange  world  which  that 
something  within  me  called  from  the  unknown, 
and  which  I  feel  has  taken  for  me  a  significance 
of  finality. 

Of  one  thing  I  am  certain — never  again 
shall  I  be  free  from  Russia.  Foot-loose,  I 

251 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

must  always  turn  eastward.  It  flashes  various 
colors  through  me,  this  modern  Byzantium; 
sometimes  I  feel  positively  iridescent  with 
the  radiance — gorgeous,  barbaric — unleashing 
everything  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  has  tamed 
in  me.  A  curious  dream  which  has  haunted 
me  since  childhood  has  returned:  the  dim 
cool  of  a  Byzantine  courtyard,  a  blue  sky 
above,  columns  ineffably  gray  and  old,  the 
soft  pad,  pad  of  slave  feet  in  the  dust,  and  a 
woman,  lying  near  a  pool,  dreaming  passionate 
dreams.  The  image  had  been  long  allayed 
until  it  came  to  life  again  in  this  Oriental 
Russia.  Sometimes,  again,  this  fragrant,  mel- 
ancholy old  land  calls  to  something  strange 
and  deep  within  me.  I  seem  to  hear  the 
Nubians  singing  again  at  night  on  the  Nile, 
and  yet  I  no  longer  thrill.  A  strange  white 
peace  fills  my  soul;  at  the  heart  of  the  tur- 
bulence lies  infinite  repose.  A  quiet  hand  has 
been  laid  upon  me.  I  feel  all  the  hopes  and 
loves  of  all  the  ages  breaking  about  me,  and 
the  beauty  and  pathos  of  life  becomes  poig- 
nant, unendurable!  It  is  not  happiness,  is  it, 
this  pain? 

And  yet  it  draws  me — the  mystery  of  all 
this    brooding    land    draws    me    irresistibly. 

252 


'SOMETHING    POIGNANT" 

Like  death,  Russia  throws  everything  into 
greater  significance.  Perhaps  it  is  Dante's 
blessedness.  Perhaps  it  is—  Who  can  define 
it?  Beside  it,  placid  English  life  flowing  be- 
tween its  lush  banks  seems  spiritually  flat  and 
commonplace.  Something  so  far  stranger  and 
sweeter  and  deeper  is  here,  that  for  one  second 
of  it  one  would  not  exchange  ten  years  of 
cheerful  security.  In  both  America  and  the 
Orient  lies  a  far  clearer  happiness  than  in 
Russia:  America  strong,  youthful,  certain; 
the  lotus-East  with  its  suggestion  of  eternal 
peace,  the  junk  sails  in  the  purple  mists,  and 
the  temple  bells  calling  across  the  little  val- 
leys. And  yet  I  must  always  return  to  this. 
"  Something  homely  and  poignant." 

Yes,  I  comprehend,  Dmitri  Nikolaievitch, 
though  you  no  longer  bare  for  me  its  injus- 
tice, its  struggle,  its  melancholy,  and  you, 
whether  you  live  still  here  or  there  beyond, 
have  become  for  me  the  sum  and  crown  of 
its  poignance. 


XX 

FROM    TURGENEV'S    WORLD 

BORTNAKA  at  last !  Russian  country,  be- 
loved by  poet  and  peasant,  and  now  add- 
ing another  adorer  though  an  alien.  Dmitri 
Nikolaievitch's  Russian  country!  I  left  Mos- 
cow in  the  late  afternoon  and  journeyed  by 
night,  an  eerie  white  night  which  only  half 
closed  the  curtains  of  day  and  invested  the 
world  with  a  gray  ghostly  charm.  Summer 
travelers  across  Siberia  must  needs  carry  blue 
curtains  to  defend  themselves  against  this 
pervasive  half-light.  Without  these  blue 
guards  the  journey  may  add  to  itself  as  ex- 
perience, but  it  sadly  deteriorates  as  a  journey. 
Sleep  is  out  of  the  question,  and  the  senses, 
overstrained  by  the  continuous  light,  are  as 
ragged  as  the  beggars  who  peer  out  of  the 
stations.  Verst  after  verst,  hour  after  hour, 
the  plain  unwinds  endlessly,  monotonously, 
like  wool  from  a  skein.  Objects  fringe  ghost- 

254 


FROM   TURGENEV'S    WORLD 

ily;  trees  blur  in  the  half-light  and  grow 
preternaturally  large.  A  primitive  terror 
sweeps  through  one's  limbs.  The  earth  is  off 
its  orbit,  running  wild  in  space.  One  calls  to 
the  eternal  hills  for  deliverance — but  there  is 
not  even  a  rise  in  the  ground!  With  mid- 
night springs  up  a  delusive  promise  of  respite 
from  the  light;  a  shadow  creeps  reassuringly 
over  the  earth,  but  it  is  dusk  and  not  darkness. 
At  eleven  the  sun  dips  below  the  horizon; 
at  two-thirty  it  is  balancing  itself  again  on 
the  rim  of  earth  like  a  flattened  orange,  spill- 
ing a  crimson-and-amethyst  flood  over  the 
world.  The  relentless  cycle  has  begun  again. 
It  is  a  lonely  mood,  and  yet  I  am  not  lonely; 
I  am  curiously,  half -pensively,  half -childishly 
content.  Am  I  not  bound  for  Agatha  and  the 
tarts  and  the  limes?  Besides,  again  the  illu- 
sion of  place  is  upon  me.  With  every  new 
spot,  Dmitri  Nikolaievitch,  it  seems  to  me, 
must  appear.  A  message  must  wait  at  Bort- 
naka! 

The  train  deposits  me  at  what  should  be  an 
early  hour,  but,  by  the  tale  of  the  sun,  a  day 
well  advanced.  It  is  a  dusty  little  station, 
inside  which  travelers  in  smocks  are  drinking 
tea,  sucking  sugar  under  their  tongues.  A 
is  255 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

shy  little  peasant  girl  offers  me  buttercups  and 
daisies  "for  the  love  of  God  and  the  aid  of 
the  wounded" — a  kindly  little  creature.  I 
want  to  ask  her  if  she  fancies  gooseberry  tarts, 
but  I  have  only  time  to  fumble  for  a  penny 
and  clamber  into  a  cavernous  vehicle  which 
scurries  off  through  the  dust  in  the  direction 
of  the  boat.  What  a  calash  is  I  have  never 
known,  but  that  rickety,  swinging  shell, 
threatening  every  moment  to  dissolve  into 
the  elements  from  which  it  came,  satisfies  en- 
tirely my  imagination.  Perhaps  I  am  not 
exigent  to-day — bound  for  Bortnaka. 

Russian  landscape  is  like  an  amateur  photog- 
rapher's work,  all  sky  and  only  a  rim  of  land. 
It  is  like  a  giant  billiard-table  ready  for  the 
play,  except  that  there  are  no  pockets,  and  the 
sky  lies  imminent  above.  Sky  in  Russia  does 
not  offer  a  varied  show.  I  cannot  remember 
seeing  ever  the  rich  pageantry  that  I  used 
to  watch  for  hours  through  the  arch  of 
the  caravan  in  Mongolia,  but  in  the  ab- 
sence of  anything  else  one  becomes  intimate 
with  it,  and  gradually  it  induces  the  mood  of 
netchevo. 

The  lake  might  be  a  Scottish  lake,  were  there 
more  hills.  There  are  few  passengers;  only 

256 


FROM   TURGENEV'S    WORLD 

peasants,  lounging,  thick-muscled  fellows  with 
tanned  necks,  and  women  in  red  skirts.  The 
two  men  in  corduroy  next  me  talk  hunting- 
dogs  while  I  gaze  at  the  monastery  towers, 
flashing  a  startling,  unearthly  radiance  across 
the  waters,  and  watch  the  weather-beaten  cap- 
tain release  his  hands  from  the  wheel  to  cross 
himself  to  the  spires  and  domes.  In  spite  of 
Agatha  and  the  tarts,  I  feel  lost,  and  that 
not  in  a  country,  but  in  a  continent.  Never 
have  I  had  the  sensation  of  traveling  so  far  in 
so  strange,  so  earthy  a  land.  No  sea,  no 
outlet.  It  is  one  of  the  things  I  hate  in  Rus- 
sia, this  suffocation  by  the  earth. 

After  two  hours  we  begin  turning  into  a 
small  bay,  and  the  captain,  who  looks  after 
Madame  Novinska's  guests,  comes  to  point 
out  what  seems  to  me  a  village  overlooking  the 
lake.  I  discern  a  great  house  with  white 
pillars,  half  encircled  by  izbas  and  backed  on 
three  sides  by  deep  forest — M.  Novinsky's 
ancestral  rooftree.  An  old  Southern  planta- 
tion dwelling  it  might  be,  except  for  the  som- 
ber forest,  purely  and  unmistakably  Russian. 
An  air  of  leisure  and  a  patriarchal  charm  lies 
upon  its  grassy  slopes.  Will  Tolstoi's  Levin 
or  Turgenev's  Liza  step  out  from  the  portico? 

257 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

The  Novinskys  I  have  always  seen  in  far  more 
formal  environment. 

Mile.  Novinska  and  three  big  hunting-dogs 
—from  the  Czar's  kennels — with  two  lordly 
youths  in  hunting-togs,  cousins  just  home  on 
furlough,  are  standing  at  the  pier,  with  a 
fringe  of  barefooted  peasant  maids  in  the 
background,  all  a-flutter  in  their  gay  aprons. 
It  is  an  event,  and  I  am  the  event !  As  for  me, 
I  feel  myself  immersed  in  peace.  I  could 
deposit  myself  on  the  pier,  never  to  stir,  except 
to  watch  the  wind  moving  among  the  piny 
trees  or  follow  the  uncouth  shadows  on  the 
lake. 

Of  my  endless  gallery  of  Russian  pictures, 
few  in  which  Mile.  Novinska  figures  I  shall 
ever  forget.  She  is  wearing  a  broad  hat 
which  adds  a  piquant  mystery  to  the  shadows 
of  her  languid  eyes,  and  trails  her  white 
skirts  delicately  over  the  greensward,  tall  and 
picturesque,  not  an  image  designed  to  make 
one  abolish  aristocracy.  I  search  the  thin 
face  under  the  broad  hat  eagerly.  A  fainter 
tinge  of  rose  follows  the  curve  of  the  porcelain 
cheek  than  when  I  had  seen  her  in  Moscow. 

"There  has  been  no  other  news,"  she  says, 
as  our  pageantry  winds  up  the  greensward 

258 


FROM   TURGENEV'S   WORLD 

under  the  trees  toward  the  white  columns, 
while  two  young  peasant  lads  throw  them- 
selves^ on  my  luggage.  "But  for  the  sake  of 
ma  mere  we  must  have  courage.  Who  knows, 
there  may  be  a  message  any  day,  any  mo- 
ment. I  will  not  so  easily  believe  that  all  is 
not  well."  I  could  feel  her  long  fingers 
trembling  on  my  arm. 

And  this  is  the  hidden  source  of  M.  Novin- 
sky's  life.  I  cannot  sleep  for  the  delight  of 
being  here  under  this  ancestral  rooftree  in  the 
heart  of  the  country,  the  background  that 
yields  a  figure  satisfying  the  deeps  of  one. 
Through  the  window  I  can  see  the  little  izbas 
dreaming  wanly  in  the  moonlight  as  dream  the 
streets  in  Whistler's  French  villages.  Beyond 
sighs  the  forest,  blue-black,  immense  in  this 
pale  nocturnal  stillness,  as  impenetrable  as  the 
heart  of  Russia  itself;  above  its  inchoateness 
the  pines  alone  are  like  adventurers,  tall  ship 
masts  above  the  band  of  black.  After  the 
open  steppe,  the  forest  allays  my  fears,  bids 
me  "lay  down  my  heart,"  sings  to  me  of  se- 
curity. I  watch  it,  fascinated,  as  I  have 
watched  other  woodlands — the  gray-green, 
elfin  forests  of  Ireland,  the  whispering  bam- 

259 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

boo  groves  of  China.  This  forest  is  far  more 
enigmatic  than  other  forests,  far  more  sentient ; 
in  such  fastnesses  has  been  forged  the  will  of 
Russia,  in  such  mysteries  has  been  shaped  her 
soul.  The  wind  rises  and  falls  like  a  chant, 
like  the  desire  of  a  people.  How  many  strange 
shapes  seem  about  to  emerge — Stenka  Razin, 
the  boyars  of  Nizhni  Novgorod  and  Kazan 
days;  M.  Novinsky's  father.  M.  Novinsky 
himself  must  have  come  out  of  it  many  times 
as  a  dreaming  little  lad,  hunting  and  fishing, 
as  the  university  student,  as  the  young  barin. 
It  lies  mystic,  quiescent  now,  draped  with 
mists  caught  up  in  white  garlands  as  if  for 
some  bridal — nom  de  Dieu!  some  ghostly 
bridal! 

I  was  awakened  this  morning  by  old  Yegor's 
voice,  and  looked  out  my  casement  window  to 
see  Madame  Novinska,  in  a  black  frock  with 
a  white  Elizabethan  collar,  cutting  roses  which 
she  deposited  in  a  shallow  basket  borne  by 
the  old  majordomo.  It  is  the  first  item  in 
her  day. 

The  Bortnaka  house  starts  with  a  formal 
enough  hall,  paneled  in  red  and  hung  with 
trophies  of  the  chase,  but  it  soon  trails  out 
into  a  small  room  where  one  may  dry  one's 

260 


FROM   TURGENEV'S    WORLD 

hunting-togs  in  winter,  and  on  this  side  turns 
into  a  big  living-room  facing  the  lake.  There 
are  the  usual  beautiful  hardwood  floors, 
deeply  luxurious  divans,  some  fine  old  colored 
etchings,  exquisite  Persian  rugs  and  embroid- 
eries which  Madame  and  M.  Novinsky  gath- 
ered in  Persia.  The  most  formal  room  in  the 
house  is  a  room  resplendent  with  ancestors, 
opening  through  French  windows  on  the  lake 
terrace  and  scented  with  the  fragrance  of 
wistaria  and  the  lime  walk  below. 

"You  will  find  the  house  not  less  informal 
than  the  inmates,"  Mile.  Novinska  had 
warned  me  the  first  morning.  "The  Russian 
is  too  wayward  to  stiffen  into  convention  like 
the  Britisher,  and  such  punctiliousness  as  is 
his  he  leaves  in  town."  On  this  old  Russian 
estate,  lif  e  is  as  simple  and  as  rural  as  Tolstoi's 
Levin  ever  lived,  with  a  venerable  patriarchal 
charm,  such  as  one  finds  under  the  ancestral 
roofs  of  the  East. 

Bortnaka  breakfast  is  a  movable  feast. 
Imagine  an  addicte  of  the  French  roll  and  a 
cup  of  black  coffee  confronted  by  a  ham 
entire;  by  a  deep  pottery  bowl  from  which 
cream  is  ladled  by  a  silver  dipper;  by  monu- 
ments of  hot  bread  suggestively  neighbored 

261 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

by  jams  and  marmalades,  the  whole  guarded 
at  the  end  of  the  table  by  a  samovar  of  tea 
and  an  urn  of  coffee,  all  under  the  eyes  of 
peasant  maids  in  blue  and  red  coifs,  who  take 
advantage  of  your  innocence  to  leave  bacon 
and  eggs  before  you  and  desert  you  to  your 
fate.  Luncheon,  only  less  astounding  than 
breakfast,  is  served  on  the  veranda  under 
the  limes,  attended  by  a  sapphire-eyed  Per- 
sian cat  who  looks  reflectively  to  the  lake, 
dreaming,  perhaps,  of  his  own  East.  Every- 
body comes  in  outdoor  togs,  for  everybody 
sails  or  swims  or  walks.  Stepan  and  Piotr, 
very  much  the  land  banns,  have  been  inter- 
viewing the  forester  or  inspecting  the  wheat 
in  the  village  beyond,  or  accompanying  the 
official  sent  by  the  Government  to  teach  the 
peasant  intelligent  methods  of  agriculture. 
And  that  in  itself  is  another  story.  I  am 
constantly  amazed  at  the  time  and  patience 
the  landowners  expend  on  their  peasants.  .  .  . 
Or  it  may  be  that  Piotr  has  been  out  hunting 
with  the  dogs  since  dawn.  There  are  two 
teas,  one  at  four  when  the  mail  arrives — the 
postmaster  is  so  terrified  with  English  mail 
that  he  sends  it  outright  to  Madame  Novinska 
and  we  sort  it — and  the  other  at  nine,  Russian 

262 


FROM   TURGENEV'S    WORLD 

fashion.  And  we  dine,  too !  One  changes  for 
dinner,  but  it  can  hardly  be  called  dressing, 
and  afterward  there  is  tennis  in  the  twilight, 
that  wondrous  white  light  which  invests  all 
this  northland  with  its  eerie  poetry. 

The  overseer  comes  with  reports  of  the 
crops,  the  priest  from  that  white  tower  across 
the  lake,  an  old  countess  from  the  next  estate, 
in  worn  Paris  finery.  And  all  through  the 
house  there  is  a  stream  of  life,  of  men  and 
dogs  and  hunting  and  news  of  the  field  and  all 
the  intangible  freshness  of  things  out  of  doors, 
and  rarely  good  talk.  The  Russian  does  not, 
like  the  Saxon,  leave  his  conversation  in  the 
city.  The  house  is  full  of  books:  French 
novels,  English  biography,  an  excellent  collec- 
tion of  Persia,  some  of  them  inscribed  in  a 
hand  like  Dmitri  Nikolaivitch's  neat  script. 
I  am  never  sure  whether  I  like  rainy  days 
when  I  curl  up  in  the  library,  watching  the 
storm  sweep  down  the  lake,  hearing  tales  of 
Bagdad  or  swirling  down  the  Tigris  in  a 
basket,  or  the  sunny  days  when  I  betake 
myself  to  the  forest,  watching  the  rafts  build- 
ing or  simply  wandering  deeper  and  deeper 
among  the  ravines  of  shadows,  looking  into 
the  upper  leafy  spaces.  Madame  Novinska 

263 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

spends  much  of  her  time  alone,  writing  or 
working  over  plans  for  the  estate.  She  feels 
a  greater  anxiety  for  Dmitri  Nikolaivitch,  I 
am  certain,  than  she  would  admit,  and  in  spite 
of  the  movement  through  the  house  there  is 
always — for  the  first  time,  I  confess  it — a 
dread  waiting  for  one  knows  not  what — from 
out  there — like  that  weary,  weary  walking  with 
the  dead. 

I  am  writing  from  the  veranda  on  the  lake 
side  of  "The  Flugel."  The  sunshine  is  pour- 
ing down  gloriously,  lighting  the  dark  pines 
and  picking  out  all  the  colors  in  the  shirt  of 
the  Cuttlefish  who  is  weeding  beets  in  the 
garden  below.  Yesterday  I  helped  Stepan 
and  Piotr  and  Casper  Caspich  land  the  boat 
and  free  the  shiny  wrigglers  from  the  nets 
hung  on  the  fence.  But  to-day  it  is  too  heav- 
enly quiet  to  move  more  than  an  eyelash. 
The  Cuttlefish  is  just  the  man  to  watch  on 
such  a  morning. 

It  is  as  peaceful  as  a  Persian  garden,  an 
illusion  furthered  by  Ossman,  who  perches  on 
the  veranda  railing,  waving  a  plumy  black 
tail,  even  as  a  hand-maiden  waveth  her  fan. 
Ossman  is  a  true  Mussulman.  His  ancestors 

264 


FROM   TURGENEV'S    WORLD 

were  transported  in  a  basket  from  Persia  by 
Madame  Novinska  herself,  and  with  him  he 
brought  all  the  manner  of  the  East. 

But  Bortnaka  is  not  Persian,  despite  Oss- 
man;  it  is  the  Russianest  Russian,  a  page  from 
Turgenev's  own  world.  The  estate,  an  orig- 
inal grant  from  the  Czar,  has  been  in  the 
family  three  hundred  years.  On  one  side  lie 
three  villages,  one  of  them  the  village  which 
M.  Novinsky's  father  built  for  his  freed  serfs. 
Beyond  these  lies  another  great  estate  be- 
longing to  Princess  Kalitzina.  One  may 
walk  all  day  and  never  leave  the  piny  forests 
of  Bortnaka  itself,  but  if  one  proceeds  along 
the  lake  long  enough  in  the  opposite  direction 
from  the  villages,  one  comes  upon  what  was 
once  a  magnificent  place  belonging  to  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Tolstoi  family.  I  believe  the 
famous  author  visited  here  as  a  boy  and  men- 
tions it  in  one  of  his  books. 

A  wing  of  one  of  the  quarters  which  belonged 
to  the  house  serfs  is  now  given  over  to  the 
country  post-office.  When  Natalya  Niko- 
laievna  and  I  drove  over  in  the  troika  yester- 
day for  the  mail,  I  begged  to  peek  at  the 
interior  of  the  great  house  that  stretched  itself 
along  a  hill-crest  and  overlooked  the  lake  in 

265 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

truly  regal  style.  I  can't  quite  take  a  Russian 
estate  yet  without  the  least  bit  of  thrill; 
an  atmosphere  lingers  about  even  the  more 
modest  ones,  strange  to  the  child  from  a  land 
where  "you  are  as  good  a  man  as  I  and  I'm 
a  better  man  than  you."  And  this  Tolstoi 
place,  even  in  decay,  has  the  truly  and  royally 
Russian  grand  manner.  In  America  I  should 
have  listed  the  house  as  seen  from  the  lake 
as  a  summer  hotel,  and  that  it  is  soon  to 
become  under  the  direction  of  an  astute  man- 
ager. It  is  a  loose-jointed  house,  with  in- 
mAmerable  corridors  and  rooms  for  the  hosts 
of  guests  who  used  to  gather  from  the  estates 
round  about,  and  wings  at  the  sides  for  the 
three  hundred  house  serfs  once  attached  to  the 
domain.  Beyond  lie  orchards  and  broad 
fields  of  rye,  which  employed  the  ten  thou- 
sand serfs  who  went  with  the  estate.  Ten 
thousand  "souls,"  as  the  Russians  say,  and 
all  of  one's  own  color!  It  staggers  my 
imagination,  and  my  grandfather  was  a  slave- 
owning  Southerner. 

Only  one  of  the  beautiful  rooms  remains  in- 
tact— a  dining-room  paneled  in  dark  Russian 
oak  and  carved  with  the  Tolstoi  coat  of  arms, 
and  a  little  medieval  balcony  on  both  sides 

266 


FROM   TURGENEV'S    WORLD 

above,  where  the  musicians  played  during 
dinner.  Madame  Novinska  has  told  me  of 
guests  riding  over  to  this  estate  in  the  old  days 
to  hunt  wolves  or  bears  all  day  and  dance  all 
night  or  play  at  private  theatricals  in  the  ball- 
room, with  ladies  applauding  from  the  balcony. 
Just  what  this  mighty  Russian  feasting  and 
drinking  and  revelry  must  have  been,  with 
wines  and  choice  viands  from  the  four  corners 
of  the  earth,  and  boar-hunting,  and  ballet- 
dancers  down  from  Petrograd!  A  regal  old 
tyranny! 

A  door  in  the  dining-room  not  high  enough 
for  a  man  to  enter,  Natalya  Nikolaievna  ex- 
plained: "The  serfs  must  enter  there  to  greet 
Madame  Tolstoi  and  to  receive  their  silver 
from  her  majordomo  on  Easter  morning.  Its 
lack  of  height  insured  humility."  But  this 
extravagant  despotism  is  of  the  past.  The 
only  one  who  remembers  all  those  gay  days, 
besides  Madame  Novinska,  is  blind  now.  The 
Tolstoi  family  have  all  scattered.  The  old 
Tolstoi  house  is  fallen  into  decay  and,  like 
those  who  made  the  hall  and  the  high-ceil- 
inged  rooms  ring  'with  laughter,  it,  too,  is 
wrapped  in  memories. 

From  the  house  we  wandered  across  the 
267 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

fields  to  the  old  Tolstoi  church,  still  lifting  its 
domes  and  its  spires  above  the  high  cloister 
wall.  A  double  row  of  white  birches  beckoned 
above  the  path  that  led  through  the  half- 
open  gates.  White  clouds  were  floating  in  the 
sky  above  the  blue  domes,  and  the  golden 
Russian  cross  seated  a  crow.  The  peace  of 
the  dead  was  over  all,  a  peace  so  deep,  so 
intense  that  it  quivered  like  silence;  but  one 
was  not  lonely.  One  felt  near  the  Russian 
God.  The  fragrance  of  the  human  and  the 
present  lingers,  too,  about  the  white  walls  and 
the  sedgy  grasses.  A  week  ago  they  brought 
a  young  soldier  home  and  laid  him  to  sleep,  his 
last  sleep,  under  the  silvery  birches,  where  the 
guns  do  not  roar  nor  the  shells  shriek,  but  all 
is  God's  peace.  ...  In  such  a  God's  Acre 
the  Novinskys,  too,  sleep  their  long  sleep. 

Alexei  was  waiting  for  us  with  reproachful 
eyes,  and  we  turned  home  again,  straight 
through  the  deep,  piny  forest,  vaulting  like 
cathedral  arches  above  our  heads  for  twenty 
versts.  I  know  a  road  at  Nikko  where  the 
arches  vault  higher,  but  I  know  no  road  that 
I  love  so  much  as  this  needle-carpeted  path 
through  the  hush  of  the  forest.  The  horses 
love  it,  too.  Orlik,  who  gallops  at  the  side 

268 


FROM   TURGENEV'S    WORLD 

while  the  others  trot,  throws  up  the  needles 
with  his  flying  heels  and  tosses  his  head  far  to 
the  side,  as  a  properly  trained  outside  troika 
horse  should  do,  as  if  to  say,  "This  is  a  Russian 
road  and  I  am  Russian  and  I  love  it."  Alexei, 
the  coachman,  throws  back  his  head,  braces 
his  feet,  sometimes  half -standing  and  leaning 
forward,  as  if  he  were  driving  the  chariots  of 
the  sun,  and  urges  the  horses  on  with  strange 
Russian  cries.  With  his  long  black  beard 
streaming  in  the  wind,  his  rose-colored  sleeves, 
and  his  velvet  jacket  girt  about  with  a  brilliant 
blue  shawl,  Alexei  looks  like  a  Bakst  fantasy. 

Alexei,  like  La  Polskaya,  is  vain;  with 
Alexei,  it  is  an  extraordinary  pride  of  his 
beard.  Last  winter  he  kept  pointing  out  his 
extreme  value  as  a  coachman  because  of  his 
handsome  beard.  When  no  higher  wages  were 
forthcoming  for  this  superior  beauty,  he  sug- 
gested that  he  might  shave  it  off. 

"Do,  Alexei,"  urged  Madame  Novinska, 
seriously.  "I  have  never  had  a  coachman 
without  a  beard." 

About  two  versts  from  the  house  we  heard 
the  voices  of  the  raftsmen  at  work,  building 
the  great  rafts  which  every  spring  the  estate 
at  Bortnaka  sends  down  the  Volga.  A  large 

269 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

part  of  the  revenue  of  Bortnaka  comes  from 
these  huge  cuttings  of  pine  and  oak,  and  Mile. 
Novinska  explained  to  me  how  thousands  of 
rubles  may  lie  in  knowing  how  to  replant,  how 
to  cut  the  trees  properly  for  the  least  waste, 
and  also  the  dread  of  forest  fires.  In  their 
newly  peeled  state,  the  logs  looked  like 
Brobdingnagian  piles  of  taffy  straws,  fresh 
and  delicious  enough  to  eat.  Out  on  the  blue 
waters  of  the  lake  two  mammoth  rafts  were 
already  afloat,  the  long  timbers  laid  in  orderly 
rows  and  bound  together  with  young  saplings ; 
the  same  rafts,  each  carrying  a  little  hut,  that 
we  had  met  on  the  Volga.  I  could  see  them 
on  the  river  as  they  floated  farther  and  farther 
toward  Astrakhan.  And  I  could  hear  the 
raftsmen's  songs  ringing  out  on  the  river  when 
the  little  fires  were  lighted  at  night,  and  often- 
times the  sound  of  a  gipsy  carousal,  river 
giants  protesting  against  the  monotony  of  life 
and  the  steppe.  And  farther  and  farther 
down  the  river  they  float,  by  day  and  by 
night,  and  fainter  and  fainter  the  songs, 
until  the  river  widens  into  the  sea. 

How  near  one  comes  to  the  heart  of  life 
here  on  this  old  estate!    It  accounts  for  much 

270 


FROM   TURGENEV'S   WORLD 

of  M.  Novinsky's  simplicity,  the  simplicity  of 
people  reared  away  from  the  marts,  which  no 
term  in  the  world  could  ever  cloud ;  a  sense  of 
inherited  responsibility  which  nothing  and  no 
person  could  ever  lose.  I  would  burn  a 
thousand  tapers  to  Nicholas  the  wonder- 
worker to  see  him  once  against  this  old  back- 
ground— under  the  rooftree  of  his  fathers. 

To-night  there  beyond  the  fields  of  green, 
under  the  eaves  at  the  izbas,  a  peasant  girl  is 
singing,  a  wild  wailing  melody  running  like  a 
silver  thread  through  the  white  night — a 
melody  torn  from  underneath  a  woman's 
heart,  an  air  of  unfulfilment.  Ah!  Dmitri,  I 

understand. 
19 


XXI 

THE  SCORPION'S  STING 

T  IKE  scorpions  the  war  stings — far  more 
I  v  cruelly  here  in  the  country  than  in  the 
city.  To  pay  taxes,  gold  and  silver — that  is 
one  thing — but  to  cut  the  sinews  of  war  out  of 
your  own  flocks  and  herds!  The  second  com- 
mandeering of  horses  has  begun.  The  ukases 
have  been  up  for  three  weeks,  and  since  dawn 
to-day  the  peasants  have  been  gathering  in 
the  square  of  the  whitewashed  chapels  under 
the  birches;  blotches  of  gaily  kerchiefed 
women  and  boys  in  red  and  blue  rubashkas  and 
old  men,  torpidly  assembling.  How  old  a 
Russian  peasant  grows!  The  sky  is  a  com- 
passionate Volga  sky,  but  it  looks  down  on  a 
scene  less  untroubled.  The  Government  of- 
ficers have  come,  smart  fellows  in  khaki  riding- 
trousers;  they  stand  in  a  cleared  space  of  the 
grassy  street  among  horses — :black  and  gray 
and  pinto — measuring  them  with  a  long  pole 

272 


THE    SCORPION'S    STING 

marked  with  a  nail  at  the  proper  height.  A 
rather  swaggering  officer,  the  younger,  with 
a  cropped  tan  mustache,  who  would  not 
waltz  badly;  the  other  a  thick-bodied,  red- 
nostriled  man  who  would  make  a  good  fourth 
at  bridge — both  thoroughgoing  and  indifferent 
to  the  grumbling  of  the  muzhiks. 

The  older  strikes  an  attitude  of  authority, 
pulling  at  his  mustache,  legs  far  apart.  "  Ny, 
show  me  his  paces!"  he  orders,  throwing  the 
rope  bridle  of  a  gray  horse  to  a  lumbering 
young  peasant.  Little  matter  to  him  if  this 
is  the  last  horse  which  Ivan  Ivanovitch  has  to 
plow  the  grain-land.  War  is  war!  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  is  not  Ivan  Ivanovitch's 
last  horse;  he  has  concealed  another  in  the 
bushes.  But  he  clambers  on  him  as  slowly 
as  if  it  were  and  rides  him  off  under  the 
dappling  birches.  Two  foresters  pass  in  fur 
caps  with  shrewd  glances.  The  cook  comes 
out  from  the  long,  rambling  kitchen,  dressed 
in  pure  white,  his  mustache  turning  up  like 
the  points  of  a  scimitar,  a  knife  stuck  through 
his  belt,  and  makes  a  few  derogatory  com- 
ments on  the  horse.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
gray  proves  himself  no  great  steed.  Ivan 
J vanovitch  clambers  clumsily  off  again,  ' '  Be- 

273 


MISS  AMERIKANKA 

sides,  he  kicks,  your  Excellency,"  he  offers, 
cannily.  But  one  officer  writes  something  in 
a  black  book  and  the  other  marks  the  horse 
with  a  cross  of  red  paint,  while  Marya,  Ivan 
Ivanovitch's  wife,  sinks  beside  the  beehive 
and  rocks  with  her  head  in  her  apron.  Six 
from  the  Novinsky  stables  are  chosen  this 
time,  and  one  of  them  is  Orlik,  who  gallops 
at  the  side  in  the  troika.  The  peasants 
watch  them  indifferently  as  they  are  led  away. 
"  Neetchevo"  they  shrug  their  shoulders. 
"There  is  always  plenty  of  everything  at  the 
great  house." 

"How  do  they  feel  the  war?"  I  asked  of 
Piotr  Pavlovitch,  the  overseer  of  the  estate, 
an  amorphous-bodied,  keen  old  Russian  with 
shaggy  hair  and  eyes  far  apart,  a  mighty  bear- 
hunter  in  his  time. 

"The  peasants?"  He  centered  his  gaze  on 
the  uncouth  faces  filmed  over  with  ignorance. 
"The  Germans  are  just  over  that  hill  there, 
in  their  minds,  and  if  they  do  not  fight  the 
Nyemetzki  will  come  over  the  slope  and  take 
all  their  horses!  He  is  a  shrewd  one,  the 
peasant.  Da  barishnya  (you  have  said  it). 
But  his  world  is  as  big  as  his  own  field. 
Before  this  war  is  finished  there  will  be  the 

274 


THE   SCORPION'S   STING 

devil  to  pay."  Piotr  Pavlovitch  strikes  off  in 
the  direction  of  the  wheat  while  I  turn  back 
to  the  house. 

At  night  I  hear  the  horses  leaving,  like  a 
great  wind  rushing  through  the  wood.  Why 
do  they  always  take  them  at  night?  All 
through  the  hours  I  awake  with  a  sense  of 
uneasiness  such  as  I  felt  in  Siberia  and  that 
first  morning  in  Petrograd:  tides  of  men 
streaming  down  the  white  path — fragments  of 
song — the  trampling  of  boots  and  the  rumbling 
of  guns ;  then  they  all  drop  into  an  abyss  which 
gives  back  nothing. 

I  love  to  see  Madame  Novinska  here  in  the 
country.  In  Petrograd  and  at  her  great 
place,  the  palace  of  Peter  the  Great,  Madame 
Novinska  is  the  grand  chatelaine,  but  here  on 
this  old  estate  buried  in  the  heart  of  Russia, 
with  these  peasants  who  have  been  the  re- 
sponsibility of  her  father  and  her  father's 
father  before  her,  she  is  the  simple  barina. 
It  is  a  wonderful  cultural  factor,  that  in- 
herited sense  of  noblesse  oblige,  the  respon- 
sibility of  the  greater  for  the  less,  the  powerful 
for  the  humble,  which  we  possess  so  meagerly 
in  America.  I  find  it  running  all  through 
this  "nobleman's  nest."  Yes,  I  am  aware 

275 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

that  it  is  a  social  and  economic  maladjustment 
that  has  brought  about  this  condition;  that 
it  is  the  lover  of  brocaded  fabrics,  of  pageants, 
in  me  that  finds  it  charming,  but  I  am  not  sure 
that  it  brings  out  the  worst  qualities  of 
human  beings. 

Madame  Novinska  was  returning  from  a 
drive  to  a  neighboring  estate  with  her  chari- 
oteer of  the  sun  when  I  emerged  on  the  terrace 
yesterday  afternoon.  There  had  been  a  new 
and  important  order  posted  in  the  town  of 

O and  the  peasants  clustered  around  her 

carriage  while  she  read  to  them  slowly,  care- 
fully, as  one  reads  to  apprehensive  children. 
Perhaps  this  is  the  portrait  of  M.  Novinsky's 
mother  that  I  like  most  of  all:  the  exquisite 
contours  of  her  face  undimmed,  infinitely  sad 
and  paling  daily  with  anxiety  for  Dmitri 
Nikolai vitch,  but  looking  with  eyes  tender 
with  Russian  tenderness  at  her  other  children, 
the  peasants.  Madame  Novinska  belongs  to  an 
older  generation,  but  she  has  always  seemed  to 
me  to  have  achieved  that  toward  which  our 
generation  struggles :  a  discriminating  and  in- 
tense personal  emotion,  but  released  from  the 
merely  personal  into  that  larger  love  for  a 
people,  a  race.  Beyond  her  one  feels  as  the 

276 


THE   SCORPION'S    STING 

confreres  of  Turgenev  felt  beyond  him,  as  one 
feels  beyond  all  Russians  who  love  Russia,  a 
shadow;  the  sense  of  hopeless  yearning  over 
these  confused  and  dim-eyed  ones,  denied 
their  right  to  knowledge,  and  now  both  a 
promise  and  a  menace.  Some  day  it  will  be 
M.  Novinsky's,  this  responsibility  for  "souls" 
—if  ever  he  returns.  Every  day  here  throws 
him  into  higher  relief.  I  am  less  certain  to 
misunderstand  him,  now  that  I  have  seen  this 
old  Russian  background. 

Natalya  Nikolaievna  had  come  out  on  the 
terrace  and  we  stood  looking  down  at  the 
scene  in  the  waning  light.  It  was  all  like 
a  part  in  a  play — far  more  like  a  play  than 
those  realistic  scenes  from  Tchekov:  Natalya 
Nikolaievna  in  her  white  gown  and  turquoise 
shawl,  slim,  patrician,  inexpressibly  lovely; 
the  barina  below  moving  slowly  toward  the 
house,  followed  by  a  train  of  bright  kerchiefs 
and  white  blouses ;  and  beyond,  the  lake,  the 
forest  purpling  in  the  dusk,  the  impenetrable 
background  of  all  this  simple  patriarchal  life. 
Natalya  Nikolaievna  caught  my  glance. 

"Fancy,  Amerikanka,"  she  said,  quietly. 
"In  the  revolution  of  1905  they  stoned  every 
one — our  own  peasants  did.  They  even  bolted 

277 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

the  stable  doors  and  burned  our  horses  and 
stoned  my  father.  My  mother  was  the  only 
one  who  could  go  among  the  villages.  This  is 
medieval  Russia.  Ma  mere  they  count  not  as 
human,  but  one  of  the  saints." 

The  post  has  come. 

Only  a  letter  from  Feodor,  Marya's  husband, 
who  is  a  gunner  of  the  battery  to  which  two  of 
the  Novinsky  horses  are  attached.  The 
horses  "draw  bravely,"  he  writes.  There  are 
new-comers  in  the  regiment,  a  little  girl  of 
seven  and  a  boy  of  five.  The  father  had 
found  the  mother  dead  when  he  returned  to 
the  village  on  furlough.  There  were  no  rela- 
tives in  the  village  and  he  carried  the  children 
back  to  the  trenches.  The  soldiers  are  very 
kind  to  them.  Shto  dyelatch?  What  else  was 
to  be  done,  Feodor  asks. 

No  word  from  Dmitri  Nicholaivitch.  I  can- 
not bear  staring  forever  like  this  into  empti- 
ness. 


XXII 
"THE  BARIN  RETURNS" 

THE  whole  world  has  changed  its  dim  hues 
for  the  colors  of  joy !  A  sweet,  mellow  old 
place!  The  limes  are  showering  the  air  with 
fragrance,  the  earth  is  carpeted  with  lilies-of- 
the  valley,  a  cuckoo  called  this  morning  from 
the  edge  of  the  forest.  Even  the  caftan  and 
the  beard  of  the  old  peasant  who  plows  that 
point  of  land  seem  to  blow  debonairly.  All 
day  the  housekeeper  jingles  her  keys  among 
the  storehouses;  Madame  Novinska  walked 
down  the  terrace  to  the  roses  this  morn- 
ing without  a  cane;  Natalya  Nikolaievna  is 
peacock-eyed.  Old  Yarshin,  in  charge  of  the 
bathhouse,  is  transporting  cans  of  water  on 
long  poles  over  his  shoulder.  The  toothless 
old  babas  and  batushkas,  sitting  in  the  grassy 
dooryards,  are  nodding  their  heads  and  whis- 
pering. "The  young  barin  returns.  God's 
hand  is  not  against  us.  Slavu  bogu!" — can  it 

279 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

be  true?  The  message  came  to  Madame 
Novinska  yesterday.  Only  Agatha  and  I  are 
useless,  toothless  old  Agatha  rocking  and 
weeping  with  her  head  in  her  apron,  and  I — 
I  steal  away  to  the  forest. 

The  beloved  old  forest !  Green,  veiled  with 
a  luminous  white,  an  indescribable  ethereal 
loveliness;  black  earth,  the  scent  of  lilies-of- 
the  valley — everything  that  is  transcendently 
fresh  against  all  that  is  immemorially  old. 
Spring  comes  on  the  wing,  here  in  Russia, 
with  a  sudden  rush  of  joy  as  nowhere  else — 
the  resurrection!  The  rain  has  left  the  forest 
fragrant,  full  of  moving  currents  of  air  and 
elusive  shadows.  To-day  a  flock  of  yellow 
butterflies  flit  through  the  labyrinths,  trem- 
ulously pendent  like  flecks  of  gold  in  old 
liqueur.  I  follow  them  swiftly,  eagerly,  still 
deeper  and  deeper  into  the  wood,  leaving  the 
needle-carpeted  road  and  open  spaces  for  dim 
arcades,  hung  every  day  with  new  and  deli- 
cately moving  filigrees. 

To-day  is  a  fete-day,  and  "the  maidens 
neither  plait  their  hair  nor  the  birds  build 
their  nests."  The  bells  in  Moscow  and 
Petrograd  ring  madly  to-day  from  the  bell- 
towers;  here  in  the  countryside  they  call 

280 


'THE    BARIN   RETURNS*' 

tranquilly  from  the  white  monastery  tower 
across  the  lake. 

This  afternoon,  while  we  were  drinking  tea 
on  the  terrace,  under  the  limes,  a  peasant 
woman  appeared  suddenly  at  the  French 
windows  of  the  dining-room,  a  young  and 
comely  woman,  her  gown  pinned  up  above 
her  bare  feet  and  a  gay  handkerchief  tied  over 
her  head. 

I  recognized  her  as  Marya,  the  "cow- 
woman,"  for  I  remembered  having  seen  her 
among  the  shining  dairy  things.  For  a  mo- 
ment she  stood  in  the  doorway  with  a  troubled 
gaze,  and  then  her  eyes  began  to  dilate  with 
tears  and  her  hands  clutched  convulsively  at 
her  peasant  apron. 

"Oh,  barina,"  she  cried,  throwing  herself  at 
Madame  Novinska's  feet  and  sobbing,  "they 
will  bury  my  malenki,  my  baby,  to-night !  Will 
not  the  barishnya  come  and  make  a  picture 
of  him  before  they  lay  away  my  little  pigeon?" 

Of  course  I  promised  to  come — my  camera 
has  been  an  open  sesame  among  the  peasants 
— and  to-day  I  could  refuse  no  man  aught! 
The  poor  mother  began  kissing  the  hem  of  my 
skirt  in  passionate  gratitude. 

Marya  had  married  outside  her  own  village 
281 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

and  she  lived  three  villages  beyond  Bortnaka. 
After  tea,  Mile.  Novinska  and  I  walked 
through  the  vivid  green  of  the  rye-fields  that 
"clothe  the  world  and  meet  the  sky"  toward 
the  squat,  gray- timbered  houses  folded  be- 
tween the  hills.  The  grassy  streets  of  our  own 
village  were  peopled  with  the  old  babas  and 
batushkas  taking  their  holiday  in  the  sun, 
whispering  in  awestruck  tones,  "  Malenki,  the 
little  one."  How  they  knew  all  about  it  I  am 
unaware.  How  they  know  of  Dmitri  Niko- 
laivitch  I  cannot  say.  The  peasant  knows 
everything. 

The  children  were  less  impressed,  and  with 
each  village  we  gained  a  following  of  dingily 
fair  little  boys  in  high  boots  and  red-belted 
Cossack  blouses,  and  shy  little  blue-eyed  girls 
in  pink  who  hung  on  the  gray  gates  to  open 
them  for  us  and  then  fell  in  behind  us.  One 
of  the  older  boys  played  an  accordion  and  two 
had  balalaikas,  to  the  accompaniment  of 
which  they  sang  endless  verses,  each  of  which 
ended  in  a  sharp,  up-turning  minor,  very  like 
the  songs  of  the  Chinese  river  boatmen.  What 
a  pageant  we  would  have  offered  a  painter — • 
Bagdanov-Belsky,  for  instance,  with  his  gen- 
ius for  genre — as  we  passed  through  the  fields 

282 


'THE    BARIN    RETURNS" 

of  rye,  lying  glazed  and  green  against  the  sky- 
line, and  poured  down  into  the  villages — a 
chromatic  scale  of  reds,  pinks,  and  yellows, 
bright  embroidery  of  the  hills. 

The  village  where  Marya  lived  was  all  agog 
with  our  coming;  the  space  about  the  little 
chapel  was  crowded  with  other  village  mothers, 
their  offspring  tugging  at  their  skirts,  and  among 
them  stood  Marya,  like  a  young  Rachel,  not 
weeping,  but  not  the  less  mourning  for  her 
dead.  We  followed  her  into  the  little  chapel, 
a  crude,  whitewashed  structure  with  one 
window  and  a  primitive  ikon. 

And  there  in  a  white  coffin  lay  a  wee  blos- 
som of  a  baby,  his  long  lashes  sweeping  his 
cheeks  like  petals,  so  inexpressibly  exquisite 
that  it  seemed  he  could  not  have  strayed  amid 
such  uncouthness;  one  wondered  if  his  soul, 
a  stranger  and  dismayed,  had  not  taken  flight 
to  nearer  kindred.  Candles  burned  at  his  head 
and  feet,  and  in  his  hand  was  a  waxy  flower  of 
many  petals. 

The  young  mother  silently  picked  up  the 
little  coffin  and  carried  it  outside.  There  in  a 
cleared  space,  surrounded  by  the  other  women, 
she  stood  like  a  statue,  clasping  the  precious 
receptacle  in  her  strong  young  arms.  After 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

the  pictures  were  made  we  waited  for  her  to 
return  the  coffin  to  the  chapel,  but  she  put  it 
down  only  for  a  moment,  tightened  the  ker- 
chief over  her  head,  and  then,  taking  up  her 
white  burden,  and  followed  by  half  a  dozen 
other  women,  strode  off  down  the  grassy 
street  of  this  village  of  wood  toward  the 
shore.  There  are  no  men  in  the  village  and 
the  women  must  needs  bury  their  dead.  The 
mother  placed  the  coffin  in  a  boat;  three  or 
four  brawny  women  clambered  in  after  her 
and,  taking  up  the  oars,  they  pushed  off 
strongly  from  the  shore.  Night  was  falling 
and  the  lake  had  already  begun  to  darkle  in 
the  mists,  but  through  the  dusk  the  white 
tower  of  the  monastery  shone  like  an  angel's 
wing  athwart  the  sky. 

These  are  the  realities,  and  beside  them  my 
life  has  been  filled  with  phantoms.  No  more 
ghosts  to-morrow — but  for  me,  too,  the  white 
samite  radiance  of  reality? 

I  had  so  often  imagined  him,  but  never  as 
he  came  to-day,  walking  so  slowly,  so  weary, 
weary,  slowly  down  the  forest  road.  Joy  had 
driven  me  for  refuge  to  the  woodland,  but  I 
hid  my  eyes  against  the  trunk  of  a  pine,  seek- 

284 


'THE    BARIN   RETURNS" 

ing  a  haven  from  pain.  How  young  and 
buoyant,  invincible,  he  had  been  in  those 
other  days!  The  gallant  body  was  still  held 
proudly,  but  that  faint  look  of  "the  man  who 
was"!  The  forest  seemed  to  rock  about  me. 
I  could  only  wait,  mute,  until  he  came  op- 
posite me  in  the  path  and  he  stopped,  regard- 
ing me  intently. 

"I  have  dreamed  you  like  this — under  the 
trees,"  he  said,  a  ghost  of  the  old  expression 
stirring  in  his  eyes.  "It  is  you,  Amerikanka?" 

One  of  his  hands  was  crushed.  He  carried 
his  shoulder  painfully.  But  it  was  his  eyes 
that  held  the  injury,  horror  that  would  be  his 
till  death,  mystery  that  could  never  be  shared. 
He  leaned  against  the  buttressed  trunk  of  a 
tree  near  me — that  familiar  movement! — as 
I  had  seen  him  often  watching  the  steppe  in 
Siberia,  as  he  had  leaned  against  the  malachite 
column  that  day  in  the  cathedral.  The  light 
fell  dimly  through  the  trees  on  his  slim,  dark 
head.  It  was  M.  Novinsky  of  the  steppe, 
M.  Novinsky  of  the  islands  under  the  pines, 
of  that  night  at  the  ballet.  I  could  have  wept 
for  joy  at  the  old  known  posture. 

"How  lovely  you  are  in  that  white  f rock- 
here  in  the  forest,  Amerikankal" 

285 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

My  voice  was  still  lingering  in  forbidden 
registers,  but,  looking  up  into  the  gray-blue 
eyes,  set  in  Eastern  fashion,  I  touched  the 
bandaged  sleeve  gently,  very  gently  with  my 
fingers. 

"  Neetchevo-pravda.  It  is  of  no  moment — 
truth.  The  fortunes  of  the  day,"  he  said, 
gently,  while  his  eyes  continued  to  consider 
me  carefully — as  if  I  had  been  a  phantom — 
and  then  slowly,  wonderingly  wandered  up  to 
the  film  of  green. 


\ 


XXIII 

REALITIES 

WE  sat  down  on  an  overturned  pine  and 
bit  by  bit  the  tale  came,  slowly,  with 
fewer  reserves  than  an  Englishman  would  have 
shown,  with  less  of  "fledgling  simplicity,"  but 
with  Slavic  sensitiveness,  the  repulsion,  the  ter- 
ror and  fascination,  the  overwhelming  ghastli- 
ness — the  esthete  tasting  his  emotion. 

"You  knew  of  the  treachery  among  Russian 
officers,  a  constant  giving  over  of  the  most 
important  plans  to  the  enemy.  There  was  a 
scheme  among  three  of  us  to  stop  the  leakage — 
three  of  us  who  had  been  friends  at  school  in 
Petrograd.  .  .  .  We  all  knew  that  it  meant 
our  lives.  Not  one  of  us  expected  to  return — 
I  told  you — but  that  was  no  matter.  .  .  . 
Russians  do  not  fear  to  die.  We  all  scattered 
into  different  regiments.  I  chose  my  own. 
Do  you  remember  the  Cossack  who  refused  to 
desert  his  horse  in  Kashgar?  Partially  through 
20  287 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

his  help,  partially  through  an  officer,  I  went — 
as  a  common  soldier,  later  as  an  orderly." 

M.  Novinsky  paused  and  his  eyes  followed 
the  curve  of  the  lake.  "It  was  worse  even 
than  we  expected,"  he  continued,  after  a 
silence,  speaking  slowly  and  distinctly.  "  There 
were  terrible  things.  ...  It  wras  worse  than 
anyone  could  have  dreamed  this  side  of  inferno. 
Idon't  mean  the  battle,  thefighting — that  is  bad 
enough.  The  eternal  guns,  the  filth,  the  em- 
bruting  of  the  whole  fabric  of  life — one  gets 
used  to  that.  But  the  treachery  of  officers 
dribbling  all  that  life  through  their  hands  like 
water.  .  .  .  Shells  and  shells — and  no  guns. 
.  .  .  Guns  and  no  shells.  .  .  .  Guns  and 
shells  that — Bozlie  moil — do  not  fit.  ...  Can 
you  imagine  what  it  is  to  trap  men  in  their 
trenches  empty-handed — to  be  riddled  with 
shell-fire?  ...  To  watch  them  helpless  like 
children — big  as  oxen — clambering  out  of  the 
trenches — slow — and  dazed — facing  German 
steel,  waiting  for  comrades  to  fall  so  that  they 
may  take  their  guns.  Bozlie  moil  There  are 
some  things  it  is  necessary  to  forget.  .  .  . 
Nado  zabeetch!  Why  those  young  giants  did 
not  choke  their  officers  with  bare  hands !  .  .  . 
Out  of  the  trenches,  wave  after  wave,  helpless 

288 


REALITIES 

— bayonet  charges  against  howitzers.  A  gun 
is  money,  but  a  man  is  only — a  man.  All 
those  peasant  bdbas  in  Siberia  are  breeding 
men — and  in  Russia  besides — their  raison 
d'etre.  Millions  of  men  for  the  asking  .  .  . 
and  staff -officers  at  the  back  in  a  wood  eating 
mushrooms.  A  man  is  only  flesh  and  blood — 
blood — Nom  de  Dieu!  I  shall  never  forget  that 
slippery  field.  ..." 

A  yellow  butterfly  winged  past  us,  hanging 
like  a  golden  mote  in  the  subdued  gloom. 

1 '  And  when  you  left  the  regiment?1 '  I  breathed, 
tentatively. 

Dmitri  Nikolaievitch  roused  himself  from 
the  reverie  into  which  he  had  fallen.  His  voice 
plodded  on.  "I  was  with  the  regiment  ten 
days,  and  then  it  was  necessary  for  some  one 
to  go  into  Germany.  We  had  our  observa- 
tions, but  they  had  to  be  verified  for  absolute 
certainty.  It  was  a  matter  of  lots.  We  drew 
before  we  went,  and  I  had  the  lucky  number. 
...  I  went.  ...  Of  that  I  can  never  tell  you. 
It  was  difficult,  terribly  difficult.  Luckily  I 
am  one  Russian  who  speaks  languages  as  well 
as  we  have  the  reputation  for  speaking  them. 
I  had  been  at  school  in  Germany — da,  I  know 
them  very  well.  If  my  German  had  been 

289 


MISS  AMERIKANKA 

less  perfect,  or  if  I  had  ever  been  for  one 
instant  afraid  for  my  life,  my  life  would  not 
have  been  worth  a  kopeck.  They  are  ef- 
ficient but  stupid.  Two  weeks  I  was  in  Ger- 
many, and  then  I  came  back.  I  traveled  once 
in  a  day-coach  with  an  officer — mainly  by 
night — any  way,  every  way.  It  was  easier 
getting  over  than  back,  I  assure  you.  But  I 
arrived.  It  was  done — what  I  had  set  out 
to  do.  I  could  have  come  home  then.  I 
joined  the  troops  again,  I  don't  know  why. 
Perhaps  it  was  only  a  barbarian's  desire  to 
fight."  He  put  his  hand  to  his  head  with  the 
same  troubled  gesture  of  "the  man  who  was." 
"That  was  when  this  came.  It  is  glorious 
to  have  something  happen  to  your  body  after 
you  had  seen  with  your  eyes.  It's  a  point — 
something  bright  and  hard  to  fix  your  mind 
besides  that.  Perhaps  I  had  not  counted  on 
lying  a  day  and  a  night  in  '  No  Man's  Land.' ' 
he  added,  with  a  smile.  "Twenty-four  hours 
of  staring  up  at  a  rainy  gray  sky  with  an  oc- 
casional one  of  those  oxen-like  creatures  crawl- 
ing over  one  trying  to  get  back  to  the  trenches. 
And  the  rain,  the  everlasting  rain — sodden, 
like  Gorky's  rains.  Andrei  was  in  the  same 
regiment — it  was  he  who  found  me.  ,  ,  ,  Have 

290 


REALITIES 

you  read  the  papers  two  weeks,  three  weeks, 
ago?  .  .  .  Seven  officers — they  were  hanged." 

The  forest  roared  past  me  like  the  torrent 
of  a  night  sea.  M.  Novinsky  sat  resting  his 
head  on  his  hand,  staring  into  the  depths  of  the 
wood.  From  the  distance  came  the  sound  of 
the  foresters'  singing;  the  fragrance  of  lilies- 
of-the-valley  rose  from  the  black  earth,  sweet 
and  unendurable !  But  I  was  far  from  the  forest. 
I  was  again  on  a  trans-Siberian  train,  watching 
a  gaunt  figure  relaxed  against  the  cushions,  his 
eyes  turned  moodily  on  the  steppe. 

"Dmitri  Nikolaievitch " — I  found  courage, 
after  a  silence,  looking  at  the  sensitive  profile 
of  the  man  at  my  side — "he  was  not  one?" 

M.  Novinsky  turned  his  eyes  to  me  as  if  to 
steady  me.  "He  was,  Amerikanka — Pro- 
shcliaiete  menya.  ...  It  had  to  be." 

As  long  as  I  live,  the  scent  of  pines  or  of 
lilies,  the  sound  of  a  lake  lapping  against  the 
shore,  will  bring  two  words  in  a  grave,  un- 
English  voice,  and  I  shall  see  a  swarthy  face 
framed  between  candles,  the  decorations  of  a 
uniform  gleaming  richly  like  the  jewels  of  the 
Mother  of  God. 

"The  dark  door"— it  had  opened  to  the 

General. 

291 


XXIV 

MISS    AMERIKANKA    CHOOSES 

WE  sat  in  quivering  silence,  I  aching  with 
the  incomprehensible  futility  of  life  and 
M.  Novinsky  staring  again  with  his  head  on 
his  hands. 

"I  am  happy  that  America  is  yours  to  re- 
turn to."  The  voice  with  its  un-English 
timbre  roused  itself  after  a  pause.  "But  you 
will  never  forget  Russia.  It  will  always  re- 
main something  tragic,  magnetic,  to  be  re- 
membered. .  .  .  Perhaps  these  are  the  last 
days  we  shall  have  together — and  I  must 
speak  out  my  heart.  That  is  the  Slav.  It 
may  be  that  in  Peking  you  have  heard  that 
I  am  a  worshiper  of  women.  I  am.  I  wor- 
ship all  beauty.  But  you  are  the  first  woman 
I  have  ever  known  well.  .  .  .  You  cannot 
know  what  it  means,  you — your  joy — against 
this  old  unhappiness  so  intrinsically  a  part  of 
my  fiber.  ...  It  is  unspeakably  dear — this 
experience — unspeakably  rare.  If  I  loved  you 

292 


\ 


MISS   AMERIKANKA   CHOOSES 

less — I  should  ask  more  of  you.  But  I  prize 
you  as  you  are — I  love  you — unique — singular. 
...  I  tremble  lest  this  Old  World  cloud  your 
fountain  of  joy." 

I  could  not  look  at  M.  Novinsky.  The 
terror  of  night  and  the  steppe  seemed  flowing 
over  me  as  on  that  day  at  the  cathedral.  The 
world  without  this  figure — so  simple,  so  gentle, 
so  subtly  understanding — it  was  dull,  un- 
imaginable! Whatever  paths  of  the  heart 
life  might  lead  me  into,  it  would  never  be  this 
one,  desired.  I  rose  from  the  pine  where 
we  had  been  sitting,  putting  my  hand  to  my 
throat  to  free  it  from  ache.  What  mattered 
the  world — old  or  new — without  this  tender 
figure — this  exquisite  sensibility! 

"I  shall  always  return."  I  tried  to  choke 
back  my  tears.  "Something  compelled  me 
here — I  do  not  know  what — and  I  shall  always 
return.  I  love  Russia." 

M.  Novinsky  had  risen  and  we  were  again 
on  the  needle-carpeted  road,  Orlik's  road, 
moving  toward  a  little  woodland  bridge  under 
the  high  vaulting  trees.  He  stopped  now  as 
we  came  to  a  turn  in  the  forest  road,  subdued 
and  fragrant  from  a  thicket  of  a  delicately 
flowering  white  bush. 

293 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

"Russia  has  given  me  a  soul,"  I  repeated, 
avoiding  him  and  looking  up  at  my  dim  green 
comrades,  the  trees,  blindly  struggling  against 
a  cold  gray  tide.  "I  shall  always  return." 

M.  Novinsky  had  never  kissed  my  hands 
before,  after  the  manner  of  his  race;  he  bent 
over  them  as  if  it  were  a  rite. 

"  Americaine"  he  said,  slowly,  searching  my 
face  with  a  terrible  earnestness,  "Russia  is 
not  a  land  to  which  one  returns  with  joy.  If 
it  were  not  my  own  country,  perhaps  I  should 
love  it  less  than  other  lands — of  sunshine  and 
freedom.  If  she  were  at  a  less  crisis — or  less 
unhappy — I  might  leave  her;  but  as  she  is 
now,  struggling,  upheaved,  I  am  bound  to 
her.  You  love  Russia,  but  you  do  not  know 
Russia.  The  Russia  you  see  is  the  Russia  of 
to-day;  what  Russia  of  to-morrow  will  be  no 
one  knows.  We  are  on  the  brink  of  change. 
Everything  one  loves  and  everything  one  hates 
is  going  into  the  melting-pot,  and  what  will 
emerge  no  one  can  say.  In  time  we  shall 
evolve  into  a  great  free  nation.  In  time — 
but  what  is  one  man's  lifetime  in  the  evolution 
of  a  race?  For  the  next  hundred  years  we  are 
going  to  be  the  most  unhappy  people  in  the 
world.  In  my  case,  if  one  can  envisage  the 

294 


MISS   AMERIKANKA   CHOOSES 

personal — a  thing  I  have  almost  forgotten- 
it  may  mean  the  loss  of  everything — of  estates, 
of  home,  even  this  old  Bortnaka.  ...  It  is  a 
Novinsky  tradition  of  which  we  are  proud — 
our  long  fight  for  Russia's  freedom.  But  we 
are  nobles  and  the  first  new  uncouth  forces 
of  democracy  for  which  we  are  striving  will 
have  little  place  for  us."  He  added  the  latter 
with  a  whimsical  smile,  but  all  the  weariness 
of  Asia  looked  out  of  his  eyes.  He  was  silent 
for  a  moment,  staring  down  the  road,  and  the 
contours  of  his  face  sharpened  in  white  lines  of 
pain  as  he  turned  again  to  me.  "But  you, 
Amerikanka — do  you  not  see,  it  is  cruel  to 
bring  you  here  to  this  chaos,  this  change- 
no  one  knows  what — with  your  clear  title  to 
happiness  there." 

I  could  feel  the  taut  figure,  looking  down 
at  me  with  sea-blue  eyes,  quivering  under  the 
leash.  He  had  resigned  me.  My  choice  was 
in  my  own  hands,  but  his  eyes  were  compelling 
me,  wistfully  questioning,  exploring  my  soul, 
burning  out  the  very  essence  of  me  with  the 
intense  emotion  of  the  Slav.  And  that  in- 
tensity, the  prescience  of  which  had  drawn 
me  overseas — that  passion  of  the  East — was 
drawing  me  now  irresistibly  to  this  man  lifted 
295 


MISS   AMERIKANKA 

up  in  pain  before  me.  I  closed  my  eyes.  I 
was  promising  myself  away,  my  country, 
pledging  my  hope  and  my  ambition.  I  had 
a  sense  of  pathos  as  at  the  closing  of  a  chapter. 
That  was  all.  Of  irresolution — none.  The 
tender  eyes  and  sensitive  mouth — I  could 
hardly  see  them  through  a  film  of  tears.  I 
knew  that  there  lay  my  world,  in  those  fires 
ready  to  light  at  my  touch. 

"I  shall  not  return — I  shall  stay  in  Russia. 
Whatever  your  destiny — whatever  the  destiny 
of  this  Old  World — it  is  mine,  Dmitri  Niko- 
laievitch.  .  .  .  Sonia  and  Raskolnikoff  .  .  .  you 
know  .  .  .  together." 

He  was  trembling  violently  as  I  said  the 
last  words,  but  he  put  his  free  hand  on  my 
hair  and  turned  me  toward  him — M.  Novinsky 
of  my  memory.  "Your  whole  life — do  you 
understand — your  whole  life?"  His  voice  was 
steady,  but  his  face  was  pale  and  straining, 
his  eyes  touched  with  the  mysticism  of  the 
Slav. 

"  My  whole  life,  Dmitri  Nikolaievitch."  My 
soul  seemed  holding  out  her  woman  hands  to 
this  dim,  questing  face  and  these  darkening 
eyes.  "Together." 

"  Moya  Amerikanka  .  .  .  life  .  .  .  together/'1 
296 


MISS   AMERIKANKA   CHOOSES 

The  passion  of  the  East,  sweeping  me  up  in 
its  embrace,  lifting  me  on  full  flood-tides, 
wrapping  me  in  mystic  fire — his  arms  closing 
about  me — his  body  trembling,  exquisitely 
near  ...  a  torrent  rushed  through  me  like  the 
wind  in  the  forest,  but  at  the  heart  was  peace 
— infinite  repose.  Strange  sweet  tides  bore 
me  far,  far  out — out — out — to  unknown  seas! 
Something  poignant  in  Russia — yes,  I  had 
touched  it. 


THE   END 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

305  De  Neve  Drive  -  Parking  Lot  17  •  Box  951388 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library  from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


-c4v 


DUE 


MCLA  URL/I 

*T?5W 


University  of  C 
Southern  Re| 
Library  Fac 


